A New Low, Lower Than All The Other Lows

A strong candidate for most shockingly awful news story of 2011, the revelation that News of the World journalists hacked Millie Dowler's phone in order to access her voicemail has spread worldwide in a tidal wave of contempt and revulsion. As if hacking a teenage murder victims phone wasn't low enough, the report also revealed that NotW hacks (the term has never been more appropriate) deleted much of her voicemail in order to clear space for more messages whilst Millie was still missing. Not only did this destroy potentially crucial evidence at a time when every piece of information was vital and confuse an already weak police investigation, it also provided the Dowler family with false hope that Millie was still alive (as it was believed only she had access to her voicemail). In a heartbreakingly cruel irony, this revelation actually lead to the Dowler family giving an exclusive interview to the News of the World where they expressed optimism and hope that the developments may signal the return of their daughter.

While hacking the phones of celebrities and politicians looking for dirt was sleazy enough, this utterly extinguishes the NotW's erstwhile defence throughout the phone hacking scandal that the only targets of hacking were fame hungry celebrities and potentially corrupt politicians, and that such hacking served the interests of the public.

David Cameron would be seriously unwise to still wave through Murdoch's takeover of BSkyB given these revelations and Rebekah Brooks, editor at the time of the hacking, who has also been remanded in the past for domestic violence as well as being linked with abetting police corruption in the Met will doubtless continue to avoid the spotlight as much as possible as she has done in the past. Her and her newspaper represent all the worst aspects of modern journalism and I can only hope justice will be served by any means necessary.

I hope you fucking die lose your job.