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investigation. Is a much still to do, thank you for the update. `` | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
still much to do. It is time for this week's Meet The Author. | :00:00. | :00:11. | |
Four weeks ago, Andy Coulson, once editor of the News of the World and | :00:12. | :00:14. | |
the government's director of communications no less, was | :00:15. | :00:16. | |
convicted and jailed for conspiracy to hack phones. In the previous | :00:17. | :00:19. | |
three years, scores of other journalists have been arrested by | :00:20. | :00:21. | |
police investigating allegations of widespread criminality. Phone | :00:22. | :00:23. | |
hacking. Computer hacking. Bribing officials. Some are still facing | :00:24. | :00:31. | |
trial. Britain's biggest selling newspaper, News of the World, having | :00:32. | :00:38. | |
closed after 160 years. And a hard`hitting government in quietly | :00:39. | :00:40. | |
and Lord Justice Leveson shone a searchlight on the manifest | :00:41. | :00:42. | |
shortcomings of newspapers and on relations between the press, the | :00:43. | :00:46. | |
police and politicians. Much of this came about the cause of one man, | :00:47. | :00:53. | |
Nick Davies. An investigative reporter with The Guardian. Now he | :00:54. | :00:57. | |
has written a book, Hack Attack, subtitled how the truth caught up | :00:58. | :01:00. | |
with Rupert Murdoch. It tells the inside story of an investigation | :01:01. | :01:03. | |
which lasted more than six years into what happened at the News of | :01:04. | :01:07. | |
the World and the company that owns it. | :01:08. | :01:18. | |
Nick Davies, this was an extraordinarily long investigation | :01:19. | :01:23. | |
for you, over six years. An enormous amount of work. It is more or less | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
finished for you now. Are you pleased? Or do you think there is | :01:29. | :01:32. | |
still a lot of unfinished business? Two different questions in there. | :01:33. | :01:37. | |
First, lots of unfinished business. There is at least 11 more criminal | :01:38. | :01:41. | |
trials coming. Lots of people lining up still in the civil courts to sue | :01:42. | :01:44. | |
because they had their phones hacked. There are all sorts of | :01:45. | :01:47. | |
potential knock`on effects for Murdoch and his company. Some | :01:48. | :01:50. | |
possibility of his global parent company being prosecuted in the | :01:51. | :01:54. | |
United States. So it is an extraordinary story. I would think | :01:55. | :02:00. | |
it has another two or three years to run. As to whether or not I am | :02:01. | :02:04. | |
pleased, it is a weird frustrating business being a writer. You stuff | :02:05. | :02:07. | |
information out into the public domain. And then, it is completely | :02:08. | :02:13. | |
unpredictable and uncontrollable as to the impact of that information. | :02:14. | :02:20. | |
So, in some ways, the stuff I have exposed has had a bad effect. For | :02:21. | :02:25. | |
example, I wish that the Murdochs had not closed the News of the | :02:26. | :02:29. | |
World. There were lots and lots of problems with that newspaper | :02:30. | :02:31. | |
internally. It was breaking the law. It was ruining people's lives. But | :02:32. | :02:35. | |
still, it was highly regrettable that, in an extremely selfish and | :02:36. | :02:38. | |
ruthless move, the Murdochs closed that newspaper. And threw several | :02:39. | :02:40. | |
hundred people out of work. Really to protect their own position. One | :02:41. | :02:46. | |
of the things that comes out of the book is that, for most of the time, | :02:47. | :02:50. | |
the revelations that The Guardian was producing about phone hacking at | :02:51. | :02:53. | |
the News of the World. Numbers of celebrities targeted and so on. You | :02:54. | :02:56. | |
were putting all this out there. And nothing was happening. Nobody seemed | :02:57. | :03:01. | |
to be responding. Yes. Well, the problem was, and to some extent | :03:02. | :03:04. | |
still is, that other newspapers in Fleet Street don't want the story | :03:05. | :03:07. | |
covered. So lots of other newspapers in Fleet Street were hiring private | :03:08. | :03:10. | |
investigators who were doing illegal things. So there was a little bit of | :03:11. | :03:13. | |
a problem there. Some of those newspapers were active supporters of | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
the Conservative Party. And they did not like the fact that the | :03:18. | :03:19. | |
Conservative leader, David Cameron, was in a position of jeopardy. | :03:20. | :03:23. | |
Because he had hired the former editor of the News of the World, | :03:24. | :03:26. | |
Andy Coulson. So there was a resistance to covering the story. An | :03:27. | :03:29. | |
active decision really not to pursue it. Now, that all changed in July | :03:30. | :03:40. | |
2011. You published the news that Milly Dowler, the 13`year`old murder | :03:41. | :03:42. | |
victim, had had her voice mail hacked. And you say in the book | :03:43. | :03:46. | |
there was a white flash, and mighty explosion. Yes. Which is putting it | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
mildly. What was it about that particular revelation that, after | :03:51. | :03:52. | |
three and a half years of publications and investigations, | :03:53. | :03:56. | |
changed everything? I think, if we had just published the Milly Dowler | :03:57. | :03:59. | |
story, it would not have had that impact. It was because it was at the | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
end of this long sequence of revelation. But the key thing about | :04:04. | :04:12. | |
the Milly Dowler story was that this was a victim who was not a celebrity | :04:13. | :04:16. | |
or a public eager. `` public figure. This was an ordinary civilian. And | :04:17. | :04:20. | |
furthermore a child. And furthermore a child who had been abducted and | :04:21. | :04:23. | |
murdered. And it was just a step too far. That this newspaper should | :04:24. | :04:28. | |
think that was a legitimate target. And it was extraordinary reaction. | :04:29. | :04:31. | |
Because it pulled in other newspapers to start working. There | :04:32. | :04:34. | |
was a whole other guy mentioned to this as well. That it isn't just the | :04:35. | :04:37. | |
story about journalists behaving badly. I have said right from the | :04:38. | :04:40. | |
word go. What makes this worth pursuing is that it is a story about | :04:41. | :04:44. | |
power. And the abuse of power. That story takes you into what in the | :04:45. | :04:48. | |
book I keep referring to is the power elite. This immensely wealthy | :04:49. | :04:51. | |
and powerful media mogul. He is able to connect into the political world. | :04:52. | :04:53. | |
And have extraordinary influence over the way that political world | :04:54. | :04:56. | |
makes decisions. And then the kind of ripple effects of his power. When | :04:57. | :05:00. | |
you come to look at the police and their failure to investigate him | :05:01. | :05:03. | |
over the years. Their failure to tell the truth when we started | :05:04. | :05:11. | |
digging it out. And they are on the sidelines, also the failure of the | :05:12. | :05:14. | |
press regulator. And all of those failures reflect the power of that | :05:15. | :05:17. | |
man and his organisation at the centre of the story. Your work is | :05:18. | :05:20. | |
clearly an excellent example of what investigative journalist can do, if | :05:21. | :05:26. | |
he is persistent enough. If he is dogged enough. There are people, | :05:27. | :05:30. | |
though, that say one of the outcomes of all of this may be a chilling | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
effect on the freedom of the press. You have journalists who have been | :05:35. | :05:37. | |
arrested. And may go on trial. Some who have been convicted. You have | :05:38. | :05:42. | |
Max Mosley, who bankrolled a lot of the legal cases by victims of phone | :05:43. | :05:48. | |
hacking. He went to the European Court of Justice to try to persuade | :05:49. | :05:52. | |
the court that they should instigate a legal obligation for newspapers to | :05:53. | :05:54. | |
contact people in advance. All of this could have a chilling effect on | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
investigations. Including perfectly legitimate investigations. Not | :05:58. | :05:59. | |
merely those into the private lives of people. I don't see why this | :06:00. | :06:06. | |
should have any kind of chilling effect on decent investigative | :06:07. | :06:08. | |
reporting. To the extent that reporters have been arrested for bad | :06:09. | :06:11. | |
things they have done. It is because they have broken the criminal law. | :06:12. | :06:15. | |
If reporters were being arrested for acting as reporters. Writing stories | :06:16. | :06:17. | |
that the government didn't like. That would really, really be | :06:18. | :06:19. | |
alarming. But reporters are not above the law. We are not supposed | :06:20. | :06:23. | |
to be above the law. We have a couple of special legal privileges. | :06:24. | :06:29. | |
But if we go out and hit people, for example, to get a story, we deserve | :06:30. | :06:32. | |
to be arrested. We are not entitled to hit people to get stories. Or to | :06:33. | :06:38. | |
hack phones or e`mail or live phone calls, or any other things I | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
describe in the book. So legitimate journalism is not threatened by | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
this. I would go a step further and say that one of the good things that | :06:46. | :06:49. | |
could emerge from this is if we instituted the kind of regulator | :06:50. | :06:51. | |
that Lord Justice Leveson suggests. That is completely independent of | :06:52. | :06:53. | |
Fleet Street. And completely independent of government. If we set | :06:54. | :06:59. | |
up that system, he wants an arbitrator which would settle | :07:00. | :07:01. | |
disputes about libel and privacy. That would then free us from the | :07:02. | :07:04. | |
chilling effect of the courts. Because you will know as a | :07:05. | :07:07. | |
journalist. One of the worst things we have to work with in this country | :07:08. | :07:10. | |
is libel law. It is so time`consuming and expensive. And so | :07:11. | :07:13. | |
potentially destructive. If you set up Leveson, you go through an | :07:14. | :07:16. | |
arbitration arm. Suddenly we are free of that chilling effect. It | :07:17. | :07:19. | |
could get much better. But we're not going to get what Leveson | :07:20. | :07:21. | |
recommended, are we? The newspapers won't accept it. And politicians are | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
not in a position to insist. Absolutely fascinating. Because what | :07:27. | :07:32. | |
you're seeing is an example of Fleet Street's power and the way that | :07:33. | :07:34. | |
politicians genuflect and back off when Fleet Street gets angry. It is | :07:35. | :07:38. | |
precisely that kind of behaviour that makes Leveson necessary. And | :07:39. | :07:41. | |
precisely that behaviour which will probably stop it being implemented. | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
So in the long run, will anything change? Will they all go back to | :07:46. | :07:54. | |
their bad old ways in due course? A lot of the dark ways in Fleet Street | :07:55. | :08:00. | |
have not gone away at all. The propensity to engage in aggressive | :08:01. | :08:03. | |
falsehood and distortion is still there. You saw how they rained down | :08:04. | :08:08. | |
on Leveson with that. I think the criminal activity is probably fallen | :08:09. | :08:11. | |
to about zero. Longer term, as the trial is probably fallen to about | :08:12. | :08:14. | |
zero. Longer term, as the trials pass into history, I would come | :08:15. | :08:17. | |
back. Nick Davies, thank you very much indeed. | :08:18. | :08:19. |