It was odd, yesterday evening, to be watching the former News of the World journalist Sean Hoare discussing the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal in the BBC Panorama programme, “Murdoch: Breaking the Spell?,” on the day that he was found dead at his home in Watford. He was 47 years old.

The footage was from a programme first broadcast in March, “Tabloid Hacks Exposed,” and Sean Hoare, the News of the World‘s former showbusiness correspondent, was a hugely important presence in the programme, as it was he who had first spoken out about the “endemic” culture of phone-hacking at the News of the World for a New York Times investigation last September, when he had also stated that Andy Coulson, who, at the time, was David Cameron’s Director of Communications, had been deeply involved in phone-hacking, even though he was on record as claiming that he knew nothing about it.

The New York Times stated that Hoare, “a former reporter and onetime close friend of Coulson’s,” said that he had discussed hacking with Coulson:

The two men first worked together at the Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of his pursuits. Coulson “actively encouraged me to do it,” Hoare said. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the News of the World phone-hacking scandal has finally secured a major scalp — the News of the World itself, closing on Sunday after 168 years in business — it remains to be seen whether the sacrifice of the paper, and of 200 jobs, will be sufficient to prevent the growing scandal from doing further damage to the News of the World‘s proprietor, the media empire of Rupert Murdoch.

Just as significantly, it remains to be seen whether Prime Minister David Cameron can avoid being fatally contaminated by his close association with Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, arrested today in connection with the scandal. Coulson, of course, served as the Conservative Party’s Chief of Communications from July 2007 and then as David Cameron’s personal Chief of Communications from May last year until his resignation in January this year.

Although the scandal first emerged in 2005, in connection with the hacking of phones owned by members of the Royal Family, it took until this week for the public to become sufficiently outraged to ensure that serious action would be taken, beyond the limited action taken in 2007, when the News of the World‘s royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for their role in hacking the Royal Family’s phones. Read the rest of this entry »