"Dark arts" at the Daily Mail?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2022
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Daily Mail Group - Associated Newspapers - has been accused of 'abhorrent criminal activity' by Doreen Lawrence - mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.
She's lodged a claim in the High Court along with Prince Harry, Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost and former Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes.
They allege the papers engaged in unlawful acts - including the hiring of private detectives to hide listening devices inside people’s cars and homes.
On today's episode of The News Agents we take our listeners into the 'dark arts' of journalism from the people who actually exploited others to get their stories.
One is a private investigator who hacked Meghan Markle's data. One was a reporter for the News of the World who was convicted of phone hacking, blew the whistle on his bosses, and now campaigns for better press regulation.
We ask what has happened in the decade since the Leveson enquiry threw a spotlight onto the unscrupulous and illegal way that so many tabloid stories were obtained.
The government has lost its appetite for any further press regulation. But has the public? And how likely is it that further allegations will emerge of as a result of this new case?
Production: Gabriel Radus
Deputy Editor: Tom Hughes
Executive Producer: Dino Sofos
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.2 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.3 | There are now seven people who are making accusations against associated newspapers, |
| 0:19.8 | that is, if you like, the Daily Mail Group to you and me. |
| 0:23.5 | And they're alleging wrongful activity, breaches of their privacy through phone hacking, |
| 0:29.4 | other means of surveillance that includes private investigators, secret listening devices, |
| 0:36.8 | phone tapping as well. The mail has |
| 0:39.6 | strenuously denied the allegations as preposterous smears. But on the news agents today, |
| 0:45.7 | we're going to ask what these new legal challenges might mean for the press, for privacy, |
| 0:52.5 | and for victims of crime. We speak to people who were right at the |
| 0:56.7 | centre of the scandal that saw the closure of the News of the World tabloid 11 years ago, including |
| 1:02.1 | this former reporter who was convicted for his part in the phone hacking scandal and whose |
| 1:08.7 | testimony helped bring down one of the most senior editors |
| 1:12.1 | in the country. |
| 1:13.2 | What I realised quite quickly is that within, you know, these repositories of people's |
| 1:18.3 | personal information, there were the seeds of many, many stories. |
| 1:22.6 | And I began to realise that this is how the biggest selling tabloids and indeed I strongly suspect mid-market |
| 1:29.0 | and probably some some broad seats as well went about getting some of their most explosive stories. |
| 1:35.7 | So if you were to guess, I mean, how many intercepted voicemail messages do you think you listen to |
| 1:41.1 | during this period? |
| 1:42.3 | Thousands? |
| 1:43.4 | You listen to thousands of people's voicemails? |
... |
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