Trinity Mirror have admitted that they published 71 stories which were enabled by phone-hacking. Now eight cases are due to come before Mr Justice Mann at the beginning of March, with a two-week trial scheduled. Those they concern include Alan Yentob, Sadie Frost and Paul Gascoigne.
Steerpike is curious to see what coverage the trial will get in the papers and from the BBC. Both the corporation and the Guardian have taken glee in the past at resting the phone hacking crimes firmly in Rupert Murdoch’s court. Giving the impression, of course, that the sin of hacking came straight from the blackness of Murdoch’s heart – rather than a sin that was spread right across an industry.
At the time of the News of the World allegations, Roy Greenslade wrote on his Guardian blog that the decision to close the paper was an ‘entirely proportionate’ response to ‘the crisis that was engulfing the paper’.
Interestingly, in the case of Trinity Mirror, Greenslade, who was editor of The Daily Mirror from 1990 to 1991 , thinks no such step is needed. ‘I wouldn’t wish to see Trinity brought down, especially given the fact that it is under new management and has new editors in place,’ he writes in a post about the trial. ‘Nor would I want it to follow Murdoch, who closed the News of the World as a response to the crisis, by closing the Sunday Mirror or the Sunday People.’
When hacking was discovered at the News of the World, there was great excitement from the Guardian and the BBC. How much coverage will they now give to the disclosures about the Mirror? Mr S will stay tuned to the 6 O’Clock news – without holding his breath.
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