EX-NEWS OF THE WORLD REPORTER CALLS EDITORS “SCUM”

A former reporter and features editor for Rupert Murdoch’s London tabloid News of the World has claimed that two former editors were well aware that the voicemails of celebrities and politicians were being routinely hacked by reporters, working with private investigators. Paul McMullan, who worked for the tabloid from 1994 to 2001, told the Leveson hearing into media ethics in Britain that former editor Andy Coulson, who has consistently denied that he was aware of hacking at the NoW, “brought the practice wholesale with him when he was appointed deputy editor” in 2000. In addition, he insisted that Rebekah Brooks, another former editor, also was aware of the hacking. Coulson would go on to become the Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications director; Brooks, the head of News International, the umbrella group for Murdoch’s news operations in the U.K. McMullan denounced the two as “the scum of journalism” for blaming journalists at the paper for the hacking while maintaining that their hands were clean. “The little men — the reporters — were screwed big time by our bosses, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson,” McMullan said. He intimated that the pair were courted by Cameron as part of his bid to secure backing from Murdoch. “What you have is a future prime minister cosying up and being molded by the arch-criminal, Rebekah Brooks, the criminal-in-chief.”