Hugh Grant, Sienna Miller and J.K. Rowling were pretty delighted when Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, admitted to and apologized for encouraging News of the World journalists to hack into people’s phones and bribe police officers as a means of getting information to print in their successful tabloid magazine. And it’s pretty safe to say they were particularly happy when on July 7th, 2011, the paper was shut down after being in print for the last 168 years. But even though the paper has been discontinued and several powerful individuals have been forced to resign from their jobs (such as the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, Sir Paul Stephenson), the investigation into News of the World’s conduct continues: on July 15th, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promised to launch an investigation to determine whether or not Murdoch’s company, News Corporation (which has headquarters in the U.S.), had breached the Foreign Corruption Practices Act. Additionally, Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, ordered that Parliament continue to evaluate the ethics of current media practices. And in order to make sure no other publication tries to illegally obtain information the way Murdoch and his employees did, Grant, Miller, Rowling and 43 other public figures “who have, or may have, suffered as a consequence of press activity” will all hare their stories about how News of the World directly targeted them with P.M. Cameron.
Grant is expected to talk about how he recorded a conversation with Paul McMullan (a reporter and photographer for News of the World), who stated that British politicians were aware that reporters had been ordered to tap people’s phone lines, and that every Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher had a very close relationship with Murdoch. Miller was one of the celebrities who had her phone hacked into and the content of her voice mail messages published. The tabloid apologized for their actions in June and when she took them to court, News Corporation awarded her 100,000 pounds (or $150,000). And finally, Harry Potter author Rowling will make remarks about how photos of her two-year-old son were published in News of the World, and how people should be able to protect their children from being publicly exposed, even if their parents are in the spotlight.
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Sources: Huffpo, TheMarySue, Wikipedia, Moviefone, TPM
