And another day goes by with more evidence of the problems on the inside of News Internationals UK papers. A person who has been hacked has had a meeting with the detectives of Operation Weeting detectives who have shown him details of the hacking of his phone. This individual is an executive for Endemol, the Big Brother TV company.
Exclusive: Met finds secret phone at centre of NI hacking - Crime, UK - The Independent
Specialist detectives from the Metropolitan Police have discovered the existence of a secret mobile phone within News International's east London headquarters that was used in more than 1,000 incidents of illegal hacking.
The Independent has established that the phone, nicknamed "the hub", was registered to News International and located on the News of the World's news desk. Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan Police's hacking inquiry, has evidence that it was used illegally to access 1,150 numbers between 2004 and 2006.
Weeting officers regard the extensive use of the phone over two years as significant new evidence, showing that phone hacking was carried out within the paper's newsroom.
This of course once again discredits the whole "It was just one rogue reporter" evidence given by News International at various stages,
This phone is apparently a company phone Which one would think was an amazing mistake to make, anyone sane would have bought a throw-away phone with cash so there was no possibility of tracing things, but maybe an expenses culture has resulted in people not wanting to dip into their own pockets.
I see three possible reasons why they have done it this way.
Firstly, as they don't appear to have trusted each other (Mulcaire appears to have been hacking his own bosses, including Rebekah Brooks) then perhaps NI was checking up on him to make sure they were getting all the information. this would suggest that management were more deeply involved than they want to acknowledge
Secondly a single phone could have been used for all hacking from inside the office, so that management could keep track of who and when hacking happened, which once again implicates management as being much more closely involved than they admit.
The third approach is potentially the most interesting however. One of the techniques to access peoples voicemails was for one person to phone in to a person then a second phone to be used to contact the voicemail, to guarantee that access was gained. Now unless there is a second secret phone, (Which you would think would have been mentioned by the tone of the police information) then all it would take is looking through the rest ofthe companies phone records, to see who else was on the phone at the same time to the same numbers. Many examples of this would provide evidence of a conspiracy amongst the journalists involved. At minimum it provides a list of names of people who you can say you were phoning someone at the same time as hacking was going on, so who asked you to?
The second story today is about possible political collusion between Murdoch and the Conservative party in attacking the BBC
Government under fire over BBC licence fee discussions with Murdoch | Media | guardian.co.uk
The government has been urged to look again at theBBC's funding and reveal the extent to which it was discussed withNews Corporation before last year'sshotgun licence fee settlement.
John McDonnell MP claimed there were "undue influences from the Murdoch empire" in the hastily agreed settlement that saw the licence fee frozen for six years and the corporation take on a greater financial burden, including the BBC World Service.
Asked to provide evidence to back up his claims, McDonnell, the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington in west London, said: "That's one of the issues we have been raising with ministers.
"It would be helpful if ministers could publish the information about the number of times that theymet with the Murdoch empire to discuss the licence fee itself.
There is a section of the Conservative party that thinks that the BBC is a hotbed of socialism, and would like to hand television over to a more commercial basis of provision. (in theory this could be anyone, but in practice this means handing more of the supply over to the Murdoch organisation)
We also have the ongoing Leveson Inquiry into Media Standards. todays announcement from them is that witness statements will take approximately three months
Leveson inquiry likely to hear witnesses' evidence for three months | Media | guardian.co.uk
Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into phone hacking and media standards expects to spend about three months from late November hearing evidence from withesses.
The inquiry will start on 14 November at the high court in London, with the first witnesses due to appear a week later on 21 November.
Victims of phone hacking will be the first to give evidence. After that Leveson and his panel of six assessors, who include former Daily Telegraph political editor George Jones and ex-Channel 4 News political editor Elinor Goodman, will start to take evidence from other parties, including newspaper editors and journalists.
There are reports that one of Newspaper organisations has been complaining thatjournalists will be able to give evidence secretly about their employers, (and this isn't a Murdoch group, but another Right leaning group) One wonders what they have to hide.