Hacking Scandal

LONDON - In a highly anticipated and lengthy report, a senior judge Thursday recommended that a new, independent regulatory authority be set up to monitor Britain's raucous press and to crack down on media abuses such as phone hacking and other unethical newsgathering practices. Justice Brian Leveson said such a regulator was necessary because the press had at times “wreaked havoc in the lives of innocent people” through its intrusions on privacy and relentless pursuit of scoops.

After the coffee. Before trying to figure out how to return those Twinkies we ordered on Ebay. The Skinny:  Two prominent former News International executives are expected to be charged in the long-running phone hacking probe in London. John Malone says sports fees are out of control. Joe Flint is back at the controls Wednesday. I'm just your temporary Morning Fix hostess. Daily Dose: A federal judge is trying to mediate the standoff between Hostess and its bakers union.

A few years ago my old boss, David Laventhol, had an extended conversation with Rupert Murdoch about newspapers. It was after some sort of big-deal journalism dinner, and they talked long after the tired waiters wished they'd go. David had a storied career in newspapers. He helped invent the Style section of the Washington Post when he was a young editor there. He was editor and publisher of Newsday, publisher of the Los Angeles Times and president of Times Mirror, finishing his career with me at the Columbia Journalism Review.

British Prime Minister David Cameron faced more questions about his judgment Tuesday amid reports that one of his top aides continued to receive money from the News of the World even after quitting the tabloid because of the phone-hacking scandal and signing up to work for the Conservative Party. Cameron hired Andy Coulson as the party's chief communications guru in 2007, shortly after Coulson stepped down as editor of the News of the World. His resignation followed the conviction and imprisonment of the newspaper's royal affairs reporter for illegally accessing voice mail messages left by Princes William and Harry.

LONDON -- A former senior aide to Prime Minister David Cameron and the onetime chief of Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers will be charged with bribery offenses in the latest legal action stemming from Britain's phone-hacking scandal, prosecutors said Tuesday. Authorities announced that Andy Coulson, who was Cameron's top communications deputy, and Rebekah Brooks, who served as head of Murdoch's News International, would be charged in connection with separate incidents in which journalists paid public officials for sensitive information.

Two tabloid journalists were arrested Tuesday in a phone-hacking scandal that has reached into the highest echelons of Britain's government and involved the royal family. The two men were arrested on suspicion of illegally intercepting voice mail messages left on cellphones. Authorities declined to name the pair, but British news reports identified them as Neville Thurlbeck and Ian Edmondson, the chief reporter and former news editor, respectively, of the News of the World, a British weekly specializing in celebrity gossip and sensational stories.

For months, Britain's scandal over scoop-hungry reporters hacking into the cellphones of celebrities and politicians drew shrugs from the general public, which viewed the affair as a rarified dispute between the rich and famous and those who write about them. Not anymore. Revulsion swept the nation Tuesday amid allegations that a sensationalist tabloid owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch also intercepted and tampered with voicemails left for a kidnapped 13-year-old girl whose body was later found dumped in the woods.

James Murdoch is fighting for his professional life, as a growing scandal engulfs his family and the media conglomerate they control. On Thursday, the News Corp. heir apparent returns to Parliament for a second round of questions about his role in the British phone hacking case. The legislative body is investigating whether it was misled by News Corp. executives, perhaps by Murdoch himself, as members explored the unscrupulous tactics employed by the company's now-defunct London tabloid News of the World in pursuit of salacious scoops.

Following the resignation of his boss, Scotland Yard chief Paul Stephenson, a second senior British police officer quit Monday amid the phone-hacking scandal that has reached into the highest levels of public life in Britain. Assistant Commissioner John Yates was under heavy pressure for his ties with the News of the World and his decision not to reopen an investigation into hacking allegations at the now-defunct tabloid two years ago. Stephenson resigned Sunday in a shocking turn of events that came hours after the arrest of one of media baron Rupert Murdoch's most trusted deputies.