Friday, July 15, 2011

Guardian retracts report that Sun hacked medical records; News International CEO resigns

The Guardian on Tuesday reported that News International tabloid The Sun illegally accessed the family medical records of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Last night, it ran a correction, admitting the Sun obtained the information “from a different source.”
 
On Wednesday, The Sun announced the Guardian's story was untrue, saying another father had informed the newspaper, and that Brown's wife Sarah gave The Sun the family's consent to run the story.

However, the Guardian's article already did its damage, helping to “fan the flames against News Corp, the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks, and got tremendous attention in Parliament during discussions as an example of why the company and its execs weren't 'fit and proper' to run BSkyB,” paidContent pointed out.

Today, News Int. CEO Rebekah Brooks announced her resignation in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at News of the World, the now-shuttered title in News Corp.'s stable of British newspapers.

“The reputation of the company we love so much, as well as the press freedoms we value so highly, are all at risk,” she wrote in a letter, according to The Associated Press. “As chief executive of the company, I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the people we have hurt and I want to reiterate how sorry I am for what we now know to have taken place.”

The phone-hacking scandal is still unfolding, as yesterday Rupert and James Murdoch agreed to meet with the UK parliament's media committee, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investgations opened an inquiry into whether the company's employees also hacked, or tried to hack, into private calls, voicemail messages and phone records of Sept. 11 victims and their families.

Image: Rupert Murdoch and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in a photo taken after The Sun ran a story on Brown's son's health condition. Photo via The Sun

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