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Murdoch Hacking Scandal Spreads To Sky News
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) – Sky News, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, said on Thursday it had hacked into emails on two occasions but insisted it had acted in the public interest, as the channel's parent company faces an investigation by British regulators.
The potentially damaging admission came two days after Murdoch's son James quit as chairman of Sky News's parent BSkyB in an attempt to limit the spread of a phone-hacking scandal that has already forced the closure of one of Murdoch's main British newspapers.
Public uproar compelled Murdoch to shut down the News of the World last year after it was revealed that the tabloid had hacked into voicemails of a murdered teenager, and to call off a bid to buy the 61 percent of BSkyB it did not already own.
Whether BSkyB is "fit and proper" to hold a broadcast license is now being scrutinized by Britain's television regulator, Ofcom, which is considering the conduct of its owners and directors.
Sky News said it had authorized a journalist in 2008 to access the emails of people suspected of criminal activity in the so-called "canoe man" case of a Briton who faked his own death after paddling out to sea.
The channel said it had shared the material with police and that it had helped secure the conviction of the man's wife, who had been living with her husband for part of the time in Panama, and was sentenced to six years in jail.
