Drea Knufken
The BBC’s News of the World assistant editor Ian Edmondson has been suspended for hacking into actress Sienna Miller’s phone. Is this what it takes to get a scoop these days? From the BBC:
The News of the World has suspended its news editor Ian Edmonson over allegations of phone-hacking at the paper, the BBC has learned. A spokesman for the newspaper said an individual had been suspended following “a serious allegation” of wrongdoing. The BBC understand these relate to allegations made by actress Sienna Miller that her phone was hacked.
Miss Miller is one of a number of people currently taking action through the courts claiming that their privacy was breached by the News of the World. The News of the World is the UK’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper, selling more than 2.7 million copies each week on average in November.
I have questions as to whether an assistant editor (read: a relatively lowly position) would autonomously take the initiative to implement such a risky and potentially tech-intensive procedure. My guess is that someone else in the organization told him to do it–or the man himself was so hungry for a promotion that he tried taking the Sith lord way of getting there.
If there’s any wisdom here, it’s that Wall Street and C-level executives aren’t the only people inclined to cheat in a hyper-competitive environment.
