Moral decline of the press

Although phone hacking became a public scandal, it was only one of the dark arts practiced by the press. ¹ Most national newspapers also engaged in blagging: accessing confidential data through deceit, usually from banks, police and government departments. By the early 2000s, newspapers increasingly outsourced this to private investigators skilled at impersonation and deceit. The top blaggers, Whittamore and associates, were commissioned by the press to investigate 13,343 cases. They were found guilty in 2005 of unlawful activity. ²