bjbjLULU JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez takes it from there. RAY SUAREZ: For more, we turn to Richard
Adams, a correspondent for The Guardian, a British newspaper not part of Rupert Murdoch's
News Corp. The Guardian has broken many of the stories uncovering the hacking scandal.
And Sarah Ellison, who's covered this story for "Vanity Fair" magazine, she's a former
Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the book "War at The Wall Street Journal"
about Murdoch's purchase of the paper in 2007. Richard Adams, Andy Coulson was already connected
with the hacking scandal at the News of the World. How did he end up working for the prime
minister? And is David Cameron being wounded by this now? RICHARD ADAMS, The Guardian:
Well, we have heard Cameron's explanation as to why he gave what he calls a second chance
to Andy Coulson. Coulson claimed that he knew nothing about what had been going on, that
it was the responsibility of a single rogue reporter, and that he had resigned as a matter
of honor. And, in fact, we now know, and are rapidly discovering more and more, that Coulson
was, in fact, heavily involved, and that presumably many other senior figures inside the News
of the World and possibly News International itself were also involved. RAY SUAREZ: But
this is an unusually public and visible position for someone who was already tainted by scandal.
Even resigning out of honor and saying he had nothing to do with it, he was in charge.
RICHARD ADAMS: Well, indeed. It was extraordinary. And it was extraordinary and perhaps foolish
-- well, we can now say it was foolish -- for David Cameron to have hired him. And David
Cameron, I assume, would have no idea that this would have got worse. Otherwise, he never
would have given Coulson a job. RAY SUAREZ: Sarah Ellison, earlier in the life cycle of
this story, was there a time where it looked like the News of the World had successfully
ridden this out, that it was going to survive the hacking revelations, when it was just
about celebrities and the royal family? SARAH ELLISON, "Vanity Fair": What's interesting
about this story is that there were lots of times that it seemed like things had sort
of died down and that the people at News International were going to kind of get off. It did, in
fact, take the reporting of The Guardian, and particularly Nick Davies at The Guardian,
to keep digging in and looking for more and more evidence of this. I mean, I think that
the big turning point, as it has been referred to here, is that earlier this week, instead
of just hearing about celebrities whose phones were hacked into, you were hearing about kidnapped
girls who ended up dead whose phones were hacked into and soldiers who had died whose
phones were hacked into. That is all of a sudden something that really focuses people's
minds and makes it seem like a much more dangerous and damning practice. RAY SUAREZ: And allegations,
aren't there, involving bribes paid to police of hundreds of thousands of pounds, that is,
hundreds of thousands of dollars? SARAH ELLISON: Yes, absolutely. I mean, that is actually
something that "Vanity Fair" broke earlier this week, is that News International has
recently handed over e-mails that -- to the police that show that Andy Coulson was -- was
actively condoning payments to the police, not just for stories, because that happens
all the time in the U.K., that people get paid for stories. But this was actually payments
for confidential information and other things that are illegal to pay the police for. RAY
SUAREZ: Richard Adams, this newspaper is known as a scourge of famous people, but was there
also a chummy side to the relationship between the British national newspapers and political
figures and the political parties? RICHARD ADAMS: Absolutely. I mean, there's a much
closer and a much more informal relationship between politicians in Britain and the media,
and especially in the case of the News of the World, which, of course, is owned by Rupert
Murdoch. Murdoch has -- makes no secret of his use of his newspapers for his political
affiliations. For many years, from 1997 onwards, he backed the Labor Party, especially under
Tony Blair. And then a couple of years ago, he switched and he put the force of his papers
behind the Conservative Party. But, then, British newspapers are more partisan than
American newspapers. This is more common. But, yes, it is quite -- Murdoch is a powerful
figure in British politics because of that. However, as a result of this, I think he is
a damaged figure and he will probably be less powerful as a result. RAY SUAREZ: Well, Sarah
Ellison, he is trying to acquire the parts of a major satellite network, BSkyB, that
he doesn't already own. That has to be reviewed by the British government. Is that acquisition
in trouble now? SARAH ELLISON: It certainly is. Shares in BSkyB dropped, I think, more
than 10 percent this week over concerns that that deal might be delayed, and in fact may
not happen. There were -- there was an open-comment period where everyone was going to have a
chance to comment on the upcoming deal. And that was supposed to end on Friday. Given
the revelations earlier this week, there were hundreds of thousands of comments that the
culture secretary needed to sift through. And so they have put that off, that decision
off, until September. That leaves a lot of time for something to happen to this deal
that is -- that could eventually block it. I did want to say one thing in response to
the notion that there's a very casual relationship between politics and the media in Britain.
In the United States, it's not quite the same thing, but you do have a very close relationship
between certain politicians and certain members of the media. And for something like -- you
can just look at FOX News here, where you have the bulk of -- or certainly several potential
Republican candidates who have already worked for Rupert Murdoch in the past, and some of
them have decided that they want to continue to work for him, instead of running for president,
if you look at someone like Mike Huckabee. I think that, where you have those kinds can
of dueling loyalties, it does get to be a sort of more complicated situation. So we're
not immune to the sort of casual relationships between these two spheres. RAY SUAREZ: How
complicated it can get, Richard, certainly extends to Rebekah Brooks, who we saw in the
report, who is a close associate of Rupert Murdoch, one of his senior executives, and
a close friend of Prime Minister David Cameron. RICHARD ADAMS: Yes. I mean, that is an example
of the sort of informal linkages that are less common in the U.S., but are perfectly
common -- Rupert Murdoch, for example, is a regular visitor to Number 10 Downing Street.
He visits the prime minister's residence at Chequers, which is the Camp David equivalent.
And Rebekah Brooks is also in the same position. She's been a regular visitor to both those
places, in a way that you wouldn't see a U.S. president inviting similar media figures here.
RAY SUAREZ: Sarah, now that the dust is starting to settle, and the announcement has been made,
and Sunday's profits are all going to charity, why -- how do you conclude that the News Corp.
made this decision, to bury a 168-year-old newspaper, a very profitable property, one
of the best-read newspapers in the English language, over something like this? SARAH
ELLISON: Well, the people that I have been talking to at News Corp. have said that this
was something that was -- that they knew was potentially in the cards for months, that
they were going to maybe take this action. I think it's somewhat cynical, because what
it allows them to do is close the newspaper, try to draw a line under this scandal, and
have everyone move on. Of course, the executives who were really making the decisions about
phone hacking have all left the News of the World at this point. So, the people who they
are getting rid of are sort of lower-level reporters and editors. And they're preserving
the executives who were, in fact, in major positions of power when the worst hacking
was taking place. I think that what this does allow them to do -- there could be -- I think
what it says is that we -- they know something that we don't know. Rebekah Brooks today,
when she was addressing the newsroom, made some cryptic reference to the fact that they
would understand in a year why this closure needed to happen. And she made references
to other shoes yet to drop. So, some of those, we just don't know what those are, but I do
think that there's -- there are elements of -- there are legal elements here that could
be at play. There is something in Britain. You can have corporate criminal liability.
And so, if you have the editor in chief, Andy Coulson, breaking the law of an entity that
is the News of the World, maybe there's a way that, if you're -- if you're shutting
it down, you are sort of -- you are sort of managing to corral that legal liability and
keep it away from News International, although there are other things that they are facing
now, like the potential for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to come in... RAY SUAREZ: OK.
Sarah Ellison, I'm going to have to end it there. Thanks for joining us. Richard Adams,
good to see you. RICHARD ADAMS: Thank you. urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
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