Peter Newlands
Journalism experts from City University London have been in high demand across the national media to offer opinions and information on the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.
Two former journalists for News International, the parent company of the News of the World, The Sun and The Times, appeared on national broadcast media today offering insight into the controversy.
The story took on a shock turn this week when it emerged that the voicemail messages of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been listened to and deleted, giving false hope to the her family that she was alive.
Previously it had been thought it was merely the mobile phones of politicians and celebrities who had been hacked into, but the discovery that they had accessed the voicemails of a child who at the time was missing has ignited calls for a public inquiry into the sordid episode.
The news broke at a time when the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is considering whether to allow News International, the parent company of the News of the World, to submit a takeover bid of BSkyB, the company that owns Sky Television, including Sky News.
James Anslow, a lecturer at City who worked at News International for over 30 years, much of it at the News of the World, gave his perspective on Sky News’s programme Boulton and Co.
He said: “It’s a massive story that is going to run and run and will probably result in a completely new way of regulating the press in Britain.”
Professor George Brock, head of the Journalism department and a former managing editor of The Times, contributed to an item on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme alongside the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston on Wednesday morning.
He told the programme that the scale of the scandal will have serious consequences: “It’s a tipping point for journalism. People are now realising that there is more house cleaning to be done, it’s a bigger job than it looked like.
“It’s damaging News International, it’s damaging the other papers, It’s as bad as it gets. In order to get everything back on an even keel, some quite senior people are going to have to leave.”
Other members of City’s journalism department have been involved in the phone hacking investigation. Heather Brooke, a visiting lecturer working with the Guardian, was instrumental in the Freedom of Information requests that led to many of the details being revealed.
Anslow praised the work of the university’s staff. He said: “It says a lot about the reputation of City University London’s journalism department that it s lecturers are in demand for their authoritative take on media matters like this.”
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