Roy Greenslade has written a thorough round-up on how the weekend newspapers covered the News of the World phone hacking apology. He also looks at the coverage – and non-coverage – in today’s papers.
But where will those headlines appear (and which papers will remain silent)? There is a clue in today’s papers.
The Guardian carries a page one story, Civil service blocked hacking probe. The Independent runs two pages under the headline Lawyer claims up to 7,000 may have had phones hacked, plus a leader – Saying sorry is not enough – and a column by Donald Trelford (the ex-editor who thinks hacking isn’t much of a story).
Elsewhere, silence. Well, not quite. Boris Johnson pops up in the Telegraph to argue the News of the World was not the only paper to have hacked.
In a piece which makes light of hacking while calling on “every editor and every proprietor to appear before an inquiry and confess” to having been involved in such activities.
This was just what the Times wanted to hear. It quickly drew on Johnson’s column to run a news story on page 4, Johnson calls on editors to tell the whole truth on hacking.
This is nothing more than the continuation of a News International strategy to deflect from its own paper’s misbehaviour – and its accompanying cover-up operation – by spreading the muck.