Guardian Phone Hacking Prezi

In light of the phone hacking scandal, the Guardian have created a Prezi document timeline-ing everything that has happened so far. It is a useful source because it is full of information and quotes from everyone involved, from politicians to the hierarchy of News International, the institution most strongly linked with the hacking.
It is particularly interesting to see how long these journalists were breaking the law for - from as far back as 2002. The law has stood for a long time that nobody can hack a phone under British law, and this is assisted by the Press Complaints Commission.

Phone hacking: what happened when? on Prezi

Press Complaints Commission

The PCC
Because newspapers are self regulated, part of the idea of the free press, there is a complaints commission which looks over the press. The commission is funded by the newspapers that comply with its code of practice. These are the things that journalists are not allowed to partake in/use get stories:

1. Accuracy
2. Opportunity to reply
3. Privacy
4. Harassment
5. Intrusion into grief or shock
6. Children
7. Children in sex cases
8. Hospitals
9. Reporting of crime
10. Misrepresentation
11. Victims of sexual assault
12. Discrimination
13. Financial journalism
14. Confidential sources
15. Witness payments in criminal trials
16. Payment to criminals

However, while so many of these were broken by the News of the World in particular, the PCC were described as "absent" by Prime Minister David Cameron. He also said that the PCC should be replaced by another more effective service, in light of their inadequate action.
Newspaper executives were recorded secretly speaking about the PCC saying things like "Getting a PCC isn't great, but a lot of papers just brush it aside, all it is is a little apology somewhere in the paper, upi get a slap on the wrist, you get reported by the PCC, but there's no money." This shows that newspapers aren't threatened by the PCC's rules, and perhaps break the law more frequently than is reported because the PCC don't take hard enough action on them.

This is all very relevant to my own work, as the PCC sets out guidelines that I will have to follow.