British Inquiry Is Told Hacking Is Worthy Tool

Paul McMullan, a former deputy features editor at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid, admitted that he and his colleagues hacked into people’s phones and paid police officers for tips. He confessed to lurking in unmarked vans outside people’s houses, stealing confidential documents, rifling through celebrity garbage cans and pretending that he was not a journalist pursuing a story but “Brad the teenage rent boy,” propositioning a priest.

McMullan said at the Leveson Inquiry, which is investigating media ethics in Britain the wake of the summer’s phone hacking scandal that The News of the World’s underlings were encouraged by their circulation-obsessed bosses to use any means necessary to get material. “We did all these things for our editors, for Rebekah Brooks and for Andy Coulson,” Mr. McMullan said, referring to two former News of the World editors who, he said, “should have had the strength of conviction to say, ‘Yes, sometimes you have to stray into black or gray illegal areas.’” He added: “They should have been the heroes of journalism, but they aren’t. They are the scum of journalism for trying to drop me and my colleagues in it.”