http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/04/milly-dowler-voicemail-hacked-news-of-world
To sum up:
There's been a phone hacking scandal in the British press for a year - basically The Sun (a really trashy paper) and its sunday outing, the News of the World (both owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News/Harper Collins etc) have been hacking minor celebrities. Nothing special.
A man has been finally convicted for murdering a 13 year old girl Milly Dowler, murdered 9 years ago. There were problems with investigations at the time.
Investigators examining the transcripts of a journalist sentenced to prison for phone hacking found reference to the case.
They found that the journalist, working at the behest of the Sun and News of the World hacked into Milly Dowler's phone WHILE SHE WAS STILL MISSING (March 2002), listened to voicemail calls by her relatives, then, when the voicemail box was full, DELETED messages so more could be made. The family then did an interview with the paper, because they thought the fact that the messages had been deleted was proof that Milly was still alive.
Apart from interfering with the course of justice, this private investigator was obviously working at the behest of journalists higher up and full root and branch reform of the media in the UK needs to be made, but it raises worrying questions for what is left of the integrity of the press. I know I will be boycotting all Rupert Murdoch's products in the wake of this.
I hope journalists in the US have not stooped to this level of degradation. I consider myself a pretty level person, but this has left me unspeakably angry
