Sky News says it hacked in public interest
Source: Agencies |
April 6, 2012, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
RUPERT Murdoch's Sky News channel twice authorized its reporters to hack into computers, a potentially embarrassing revelation that could further dent the media tycoon's hope of acquiring full control over satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
Sky News said in a statement yesterday that in one case it broke into emails belonging to Anne and John Darwin, the so-called "canoe couple" who became notorious in Britain after the latter faked his own death in a boating accident as part of an elaborate insurance scam. The circumstances surrounding the second case weren't made clear.
Sky News admitted intercepting the canoe couple's emails, but said the material was later handed to police and insisted it had done nothing wrong.
"We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest. We do not take such decisions lightly or frequently," Sky News chief John Ryley said in a statement.
He noted that, in a 2004 investigation, a Sky News journalists had bought an Uzi submachine gun to illustrate the availability of banned weapons in Britain. In 2003, a reporter sneaked into a restricted area at London's Heathrow Airport to highlight security failings.
"These investigations serve the public interest and are a legitimate part of responsible journalism," Ryley said.
A media frenzy was kicked off when John Darwin - long thought to have died in a boating accident in the North Sea - walked into a London police station in late 2007 and said: "I think I'm a missing person."
He claimed to have amnesia and said he could remember nothing since 2000, but his story unraveled as journalists and police started digging into his background.
Sky News didn't identify which of its stories was the result of hacking, but in an article dated July 21, 2008, journalist Gerard Tubb said the channel had uncovered documentary evidence showing that John Darwin had decided to return to England because he was having trouble staying in Panama.
"We discovered an email," the article begins, without giving any explanation of how the message was obtained. The company's public interest defense immediately drew skepticism from British legal experts.
David Allen Green, media lawyer at Preiskel & Co, said that there was no such thing as a public interest defense as far as Britain's Computer Misuse Act was concerned.
Sky's email hacking, first reported in Britain's Guardian newspaper, could be a further headache for Murdoch. His international media empire has spent the better part of a year in the spotlight over widespread illegal behavior at his now-defunct News of the World tabloid, where journalists routinely hacked into public figures' phones to win scoops.
News Corp owns a 39.1 percent stake in BSkyB, which owns Sky News, and Murdoch was forced to abandon a potentially lucrative bid for full control of the broadcaster after the phone hacking scandal boiled over in July.
Sky News said in a statement yesterday that in one case it broke into emails belonging to Anne and John Darwin, the so-called "canoe couple" who became notorious in Britain after the latter faked his own death in a boating accident as part of an elaborate insurance scam. The circumstances surrounding the second case weren't made clear.
Sky News admitted intercepting the canoe couple's emails, but said the material was later handed to police and insisted it had done nothing wrong.
"We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest. We do not take such decisions lightly or frequently," Sky News chief John Ryley said in a statement.
He noted that, in a 2004 investigation, a Sky News journalists had bought an Uzi submachine gun to illustrate the availability of banned weapons in Britain. In 2003, a reporter sneaked into a restricted area at London's Heathrow Airport to highlight security failings.
"These investigations serve the public interest and are a legitimate part of responsible journalism," Ryley said.
A media frenzy was kicked off when John Darwin - long thought to have died in a boating accident in the North Sea - walked into a London police station in late 2007 and said: "I think I'm a missing person."
He claimed to have amnesia and said he could remember nothing since 2000, but his story unraveled as journalists and police started digging into his background.
Sky News didn't identify which of its stories was the result of hacking, but in an article dated July 21, 2008, journalist Gerard Tubb said the channel had uncovered documentary evidence showing that John Darwin had decided to return to England because he was having trouble staying in Panama.
"We discovered an email," the article begins, without giving any explanation of how the message was obtained. The company's public interest defense immediately drew skepticism from British legal experts.
David Allen Green, media lawyer at Preiskel & Co, said that there was no such thing as a public interest defense as far as Britain's Computer Misuse Act was concerned.
Sky's email hacking, first reported in Britain's Guardian newspaper, could be a further headache for Murdoch. His international media empire has spent the better part of a year in the spotlight over widespread illegal behavior at his now-defunct News of the World tabloid, where journalists routinely hacked into public figures' phones to win scoops.
News Corp owns a 39.1 percent stake in BSkyB, which owns Sky News, and Murdoch was forced to abandon a potentially lucrative bid for full control of the broadcaster after the phone hacking scandal boiled over in July.
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