Greeny News

Before I get to the specifics of the latest stories involving the News of the World, it's impossible not to notice the central place in the media landscape occupied by that newspaper in the last couple of weeks.

This set of news programs with the scandal surrounding Pakistan's cricket yesterday 's Wayne Rooney revelation. And it figures in the ongoing controversy over voicemail hacking.

The newspaper is Britain's best-selling Sunday title with an average circulation over the last six months of 2,894,000. Its sale is going down, but not nearly as rapidly as that of its red-top rivals.

Although it dropped to second place in the general circulation of the newspaper's national league - for her News International daily stablemate, The Sun - its form of journalism, in terms of both content and methodology, is arguably more influential than The Sun's.

For a good while under its editor since 2007, Colin Myler, it appeared as if the paper was pulling away from its sensational stock-in-trade of intrusive investigations.

Myler surprised a Society of Editors conference by announcing that his paper would run fewer sex and drugs celebrity stings. He claimed to have redirected the attentions of his investigations editor Mazher Mahmood (aka the Fake Sheikh).

He told the conference: "I personally believe that stories about celebrities misbehaving - well, that's a surprise, isn't it... I think there are other issues out there that he [Mahmood] should be looking at, issues that affect the fabric of society and we will see a bit more of that."

Well, we didn't see much of it at all. Though the NoW did seem to stop choosing weaker targets (such as the council house wife-swappers) it continued to write about misbehaving celebrities (That's a surprise, isn't it, Colin?)

In fairness, I did detect - though those who don't read it regularly may not believe this - that the NoW's articles were less salacious than in the pre-Myler era.

There were even rumours for a while that Mahmood was out of favour. That gossip has been well and truly laid to rest because he has been responsible for several of the most controversial recent stings, such as those involving snooker player John Higgins (here) Duchess of York (here) and, of course, the Pakistan cricket fixing.

[Incidentally, for the latest criticisms of the Higgins "investigation", see Nick Harris'sanalysis of the differences between what the document said on the video and what was actually said on the website of Sports Intelligence ].

So Mahmood remains a key player at the News of the World, and not just because of his own stories. His success in the routine use of subterfuge and his employment of covert technology influences the approach to story-getting by other NoW journalists and, of course, the paper's overall journalistic culture.

I have described the News of the World as a rogue newspaperin some cases dating back more than a decade. When I first wrote about their activities, it seemed, could not convince anyone, including editors of major newspapers, that the effect of its journalism lead to a crisis, a press release.

However, in 2008, the paper was adjudged to have intruded into the private life of Formula One chief Max Mosley by exposing in print and on video his sado-masochistic sex session with prostitutes.

He was awarded £60,000 in damages. But that was not the end of the matter for Mosley - nor the press. He has lodged a request with the European Court of Human Rights to amend the law in order to compel journalists to inform the subject of a story of the private details they intend to print prior to publication.

Now that would have far-reaching effects on how British journalists - all journalists, not merely those from the News of the World - go about their business. The editors of serious newspapers are alarmed by the possibility of the European court accepting Mosley's suggestion.

It would be foolish to suggest that all the paper's investigations are misguided and that all the "victims" are innocent of wrongdoing. As is often said, we have to take them on a case-by-case basis and judge them on their merits (or demerits).

But the methodology - the elaborate and sophisticated stings in which which large sums of money are offered to tempt people into misbehaviour and/or the loosening of tongues by the provision of alcohol - is almost always questionable.

Running in parallel with arguments about sting operations is the continuing concern about another of the paper's (supposedly former) story-getting methods - the hacking into telephone voicemail messages.

When the paper's royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in January 2007 it was obvious to all sensible journalists that they could not have acted as they did without anyone else in the NoW newsroom knowing what they were up to.

Yet News International bosses and the paper's senior executives have always maintained that it was a rogue operation (note the irony of the rogue paper referring to rogues within its midst).

Revelations by Nick Daviesquestioned the failure, pointing to an extrajudicial settlement is not of royal blood sacrifice Gordon Taylor. Now the New York Timesproduced further evidence of widespread use and knowledge of the phone from hackers .

There is something nasty in the News of the World shed, and it is time that he has eliminated before the press gets that he does not want to - 'right to privacy and / or amendments Mosley.

In this paper 's public advocacy for what she, as a rule, a plate
thin. Its press freedom stance, in which it claims that the public has "a right to know" about celebrity hypocrisy, also cannot be taken seriously.

What the News of the World does is publish material that appeals to public prurience in order to maximise its sale. It acts with apparent impunity, taking ever greater risks with press freedom. But for what lasting good?

I will deal separately with the Pakistan, Rooney and hacking stories in later postings.