The Phone-Hacking Scandal

For the last couple of years a large number of British papers published by News International have been getting their information through hacking phones and other illegal methods. This went reasonably unnoticed untill November 2005 when News Of World published a story about Prince William containing information that they acquired through phone hacking. This then sparked several investigations surrounding News Of The World and News International.
This saga continued for several years until it was reported that News Of The World had accessed the voicemail of Millie Dowler, giving false hope to the family that she was still alive. The releasing of this information sparked outcry from the general public and halted the takeover of BSkyB by News Corp. This information then led to the discovery of shocking victims that the News Of The World had hacked including survivors of the 7/7 bombings and various victims of serious crimes, eventually resulting into an investigation into The Sun and The Sunday Times.
On 6 July 2011, David Cameron announced that he had commissioned an inquiry into the hacking scandal, appointing Lord Justice Leveson as they chairman. The results are finally in from the Inquiry.
Although, the actual report is 1,988 pages long, the conclusion Lord Leveson has come to is that the way the press are regulated must change. At the moment, the press have a self-regulating body, which means many of the people who regulate the press are editors themselves and are essentially “marking their own homework”. What Leveson suggests is an independent regulatory body with “statutory under-pinning”, which means that it is based on a law that should be passed. This would essentially make press ethics a legal matter.