31/07/2014 Meet the Author

investigation. Is a much still to do, thank you for the update. ``

still much to do. It is time for this week's Meet The Author.

Four weeks ago, Andy Coulson, once editor of the News of the World and

the government's director of communications no less, was

convicted and jailed for conspiracy to hack phones. In the previous

three years, scores of other journalists have been arrested by

police investigating allegations of widespread criminality. Phone

hacking. Computer hacking. Bribing officials. Some are still facing

trial. Britain's biggest selling newspaper, News of the World, having

closed after 160 years. And a hard`hitting government in quietly

and Lord Justice Leveson shone a searchlight on the manifest

shortcomings of newspapers and on relations between the press, the

police and politicians. Much of this came about the cause of one man,

Nick Davies. An investigative reporter with The Guardian. Now he

has written a book, Hack Attack, subtitled how the truth caught up

with Rupert Murdoch. It tells the inside story of an investigation

which lasted more than six years into what happened at the News of

the World and the company that owns it.

Nick Davies, this was an extraordinarily long investigation

for you, over six years. An enormous amount of work. It is more or less

finished for you now. Are you pleased? Or do you think there is

still a lot of unfinished business? Two different questions in there.

First, lots of unfinished business. There is at least 11 more criminal

trials coming. Lots of people lining up still in the civil courts to sue

because they had their phones hacked. There are all sorts of

potential knock`on effects for Murdoch and his company. Some

possibility of his global parent company being prosecuted in the

United States. So it is an extraordinary story. I would think

it has another two or three years to run. As to whether or not I am

pleased, it is a weird frustrating business being a writer. You stuff

information out into the public domain. And then, it is completely

unpredictable and uncontrollable as to the impact of that information.

So, in some ways, the stuff I have exposed has had a bad effect. For

example, I wish that the Murdochs had not closed the News of the

World. There were lots and lots of problems with that newspaper

internally. It was breaking the law. It was ruining people's lives. But

still, it was highly regrettable that, in an extremely selfish and

ruthless move, the Murdochs closed that newspaper. And threw several

hundred people out of work. Really to protect their own position. One

of the things that comes out of the book is that, for most of the time,

the revelations that The Guardian was producing about phone hacking at

the News of the World. Numbers of celebrities targeted and so on. You

were putting all this out there. And nothing was happening. Nobody seemed

to be responding. Yes. Well, the problem was, and to some extent

still is, that other newspapers in Fleet Street don't want the story

covered. So lots of other newspapers in Fleet Street were hiring private

investigators who were doing illegal things. So there was a little bit of

a problem there. Some of those newspapers were active supporters of

the Conservative Party. And they did not like the fact that the

Conservative leader, David Cameron, was in a position of jeopardy.

Because he had hired the former editor of the News of the World,

Andy Coulson. So there was a resistance to covering the story. An

active decision really not to pursue it. Now, that all changed in July

2011. You published the news that Milly Dowler, the 13`year`old murder

victim, had had her voice mail hacked. And you say in the book

there was a white flash, and mighty explosion. Yes. Which is putting it

mildly. What was it about that particular revelation that, after

three and a half years of publications and investigations,

changed everything? I think, if we had just published the Milly Dowler

story, it would not have had that impact. It was because it was at the

end of this long sequence of revelation. But the key thing about

the Milly Dowler story was that this was a victim who was not a celebrity

or a public eager. `` public figure. This was an ordinary civilian. And

furthermore a child. And furthermore a child who had been abducted and

murdered. And it was just a step too far. That this newspaper should

think that was a legitimate target. And it was extraordinary reaction.

Because it pulled in other newspapers to start working. There

was a whole other guy mentioned to this as well. That it isn't just the

story about journalists behaving badly. I have said right from the

word go. What makes this worth pursuing is that it is a story about

power. And the abuse of power. That story takes you into what in the

book I keep referring to is the power elite. This immensely wealthy

and powerful media mogul. He is able to connect into the political world.

And have extraordinary influence over the way that political world

makes decisions. And then the kind of ripple effects of his power. When

you come to look at the police and their failure to investigate him

over the years. Their failure to tell the truth when we started

digging it out. And they are on the sidelines, also the failure of the

press regulator. And all of those failures reflect the power of that

man and his organisation at the centre of the story. Your work is

clearly an excellent example of what investigative journalist can do, if

he is persistent enough. If he is dogged enough. There are people,

though, that say one of the outcomes of all of this may be a chilling

effect on the freedom of the press. You have journalists who have been

arrested. And may go on trial. Some who have been convicted. You have

Max Mosley, who bankrolled a lot of the legal cases by victims of phone

hacking. He went to the European Court of Justice to try to persuade

the court that they should instigate a legal obligation for newspapers to

contact people in advance. All of this could have a chilling effect on

investigations. Including perfectly legitimate investigations. Not

merely those into the private lives of people. I don't see why this

should have any kind of chilling effect on decent investigative

reporting. To the extent that reporters have been arrested for bad

things they have done. It is because they have broken the criminal law.

If reporters were being arrested for acting as reporters. Writing stories

that the government didn't like. That would really, really be

alarming. But reporters are not above the law. We are not supposed

to be above the law. We have a couple of special legal privileges.

But if we go out and hit people, for example, to get a story, we deserve

to be arrested. We are not entitled to hit people to get stories. Or to

hack phones or e`mail or live phone calls, or any other things I

describe in the book. So legitimate journalism is not threatened by

this. I would go a step further and say that one of the good things that

could emerge from this is if we instituted the kind of regulator

that Lord Justice Leveson suggests. That is completely independent of

Fleet Street. And completely independent of government. If we set

up that system, he wants an arbitrator which would settle

disputes about libel and privacy. That would then free us from the

chilling effect of the courts. Because you will know as a

journalist. One of the worst things we have to work with in this country

is libel law. It is so time`consuming and expensive. And so

potentially destructive. If you set up Leveson, you go through an

arbitration arm. Suddenly we are free of that chilling effect. It

could get much better. But we're not going to get what Leveson

recommended, are we? The newspapers won't accept it. And politicians are

not in a position to insist. Absolutely fascinating. Because what

you're seeing is an example of Fleet Street's power and the way that

politicians genuflect and back off when Fleet Street gets angry. It is

precisely that kind of behaviour that makes Leveson necessary. And

precisely that behaviour which will probably stop it being implemented.

So in the long run, will anything change? Will they all go back to

their bad old ways in due course? A lot of the dark ways in Fleet Street

have not gone away at all. The propensity to engage in aggressive

falsehood and distortion is still there. You saw how they rained down

on Leveson with that. I think the criminal activity is probably fallen

to about zero. Longer term, as the trial is probably fallen to about

zero. Longer term, as the trials pass into history, I would come

back. Nick Davies, thank you very much indeed.