guardian.co.uk,
Dan Sabbagh and Lisa O'Carroll, Thursday 19 April 2012
Tom Watson described News Corp as a 'toxic institition' at the launch of his book. Photograph: David Gadd/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar |
News Corporation is a "toxic institution" that operated like a
"shadow state" in British society, according to a Labour MP who is
the co-author of a new book about the phone-hacking scandal.
Tom Watson,
joint writer of Dial M for Murdoch, said that the book also featured
allegations that Murdoch's News of the World set out to search for "secret
lovers" or "extramarital affairs" of MPs on the culture, media
and sport select committee in 2009.
At a packed
press conference, Watson, a member of the Commons culture select committee,
said that the surveillance revelation – passed onto him by former News of the
World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck – demonstrated how the Murdoch
organisation tried to intimidate parliament.
Thurlbeck
gave Watson an on-the-record interview, with a witness present, in which he
said the then News of the World editor, Colin Myler, told journalists on the Sunday
tabloid to "find out everything you can about every single member".
At the time
the select committee was conducting its second inquiry into phone hacking, in
the wake of revelations in the Guardian that the practice went beyond a single
"rogue reporter" at the tabloid.
The aim was
to discover "who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use,"
according to Thurlbeck, as quoted in the book. "Each reporter was given
two members [MPs] and there were six reporters that went on for around 10
days."
Thurlbeck
told Watson that the investigations eventually "fell by the wayside"
and that "even Ian Edmondson", the then news editor, "realised
that there was something quite horrible about doing this".
Watson, and
his co-author Martin Hickman, an Independent journalist, said that they
believed that pressure on MPs at the time influenced the decision not to compel
Rebekah Brooks, who was then News International's chief executive, to give
evidence before the committee.
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