Phone hacking scandal

Phone hacking scandal: senior News of the World reporter arrested

 A senior reporter at the News of the World has been arrested by detectives investigating the phone-hacking scandal. 

James Weatherup, who has also worked as a news editor with the Sunday tabloid, is being questioned at a London police station, sources said.

The journalist is the third person arrested since the Metropolitan Police reopened their inquiry into claims that staff at the top-selling newspaper hacked into the answerphone messages of celebrities and politicians.

Mr Weatherup was arrested by Scotland Yard's Operation Weeting team on suspicion of unlawfully intercepting mobile phone voicemail messages.

A police spokesman said a 55-year-old man was arrested at 8am and taken to a London police station.

"He remains in custody for questioning after being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to unlawfully intercept communications," he added.

 "The Operation Weeting team is conducting the new investigation into phone-hacking. It would be inappropriate to discuss any further details regarding this case at this time."

The arrest further underlines the Metropolitan Police's determination to investigate the scandal thoroughly after criticism that an earlier inquiry was inadequate.
Neville Thurlbeck, 50, and Ian Edmondson, 42, were held by earlier this month and have been released on police bail to return in September.
Mr Weatherup has worked on national papers for 25 years, according to his LinkedIn webpage.
"My posts include reporter, chief reporter, deputy news editor and news editor of The People and News of the World newspapers," he writes.
"As well as breaking exclusive stories, managing huge budgets, I also advised stars on PR and media-related matters."

Scotland Yard has endured repeated criticism over its handling of the original phone-hacking inquiry, which led to the conviction of News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire in 2007.
The paper's former editor, Andy Coulson, resigned as Prime Minister David Cameron's director of communications in January as he admitted that the ongoing row about the affair was making his job impossible.
Days later the Met launched a fresh investigation, code-named Weeting, after receiving "significant new information" from News International.
Last week, eight people who had made claims against the News of the World, including actress Sienna Miller and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, received apologies from the newspaper.
The joint statement came as it emerged that News International has written to another nine claimants in the phone-hacking scandal, asking them to provide further evidence that journalists intercepted their voicemails.

Source : Telegraph

Strip Off But Keep Those Heels On

Cheating and stealing has become quite the norm now every where. Though, we are aware of it but often we hear or read about such respectable institutions or people getting so low that it leaves many questions in the mind like is it really necessary in the first place to cheat or steal? A few days ago I wrote about some teacher in Pakistan who bravely spent about a Rs100,000 on a stolen credit card without feeling ashamed for a second. Today, I'll write about an international incident.

This is news from London where a young woman wanted to tell the world about her steamy affair with Ralph Fiennes for two years. She told the press about their intimate affair, what he liked to do and how he liked to do it. Three newspapers - The Sunday Mirror, The Mail on Sunday and News of the World reported this story covering their version. 

Indeed, it was a cheap stunt played by Cornelia Crisan who took about 62000 pounds for sharing her story to The Sunday Mirror and The Mail on Sunday. But News of the World did some very low. They illegally hacked into the voice mail messages of Crisan's press agent, Nicola Phillips and stole the story. Therefore, there is a lawsuit going on against News of the World by Nicola Phillips.

Cornelia Crisan

This is not the first time that News of the World came under such a lawsuit. It is the newspaper has a record of going for sneaking and phone hacking methods to report stories. In 2007, Clive Goodman, the paper's former editor who was in charge of coverage of royal family was jailed because he illegally intercepted the messages of members of the royal family.

Crisan is a Romania singer to claimed that Ralph Fiennes cheated on his girlfriend and had an affair with her. The Sunday Mirror covered this story by giving a very spicy headline as per the details they got from Crisan "He Stripped Slowly and Then Said,'Keep Your Heels On'."  

The Mail on Sunday covered the story with focus on how Ralph Fiennes had used the same love making techniques with her that he had used with Julianne Moore in The End of Affair. 

Ralph Fiennes

While The News of the World chose to cover the story by cheating and hacking into records. This newspaper is now under fire due to repetitive techniques of cheating and stealing for stories. Brendan Motangue, a former freelance journalist who often sold stories to News of the World also reported that the paper hacked into his voice mail messages to get a sex scandal story of a celebrity chef and then after stealing the story they didn't have to pay them the 30,000 pounds that they had to pay them otherwise.

Well, so this is an example of how even internationally cheating and stealing by renowned papers are done. It seems people are lost in a rut and don't follow any principles just for the heck of having some juicy stories and not to pay for stories. Hacking is a common thing too. I think, it is absolutely ridiculous when hacking is conducted...some do it for information and some people are such psychotic perhaps. And yes, recently, we noticed how a local daily paper started stealing in fact copy pasting entire stories from other sources. The stealing is done in such an improper manner that they don't even edit the details that make the paper look so ridiculous now and have lost all credibility.