Sean Hoare knew how destructive the News of the World could be

[somone]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/sean-hoare-news-of-the-world

Sean Hoare knew how destructive the News of the World could be
The courageous whistleblower who claimed Andy Coulson knew about phone hacking had a powerful motive for speaking out
Nick Davies

At a time when the reputation of News of the World journalists is at rock bottom, it needs to be said that the paper's former showbusiness correspondent Sean Hoare, who died on Monday, was a lovely man.

In the saga of the phone-hacking scandal, he distinguished himself by being the first former NoW journalist to come out on the record, telling the New York Times last year that his former friend and editor, Andy Coulson, had actively encouraged him to hack into voicemail.

That took courage. But he had a particularly powerful motive for speaking. He knew how destructive the News of the World could be, not just for the targets of its exposés, but also for the ordinary journalists who worked there, who got caught up in its remorseless drive for headlines.

Explaining why he had spoken out, he told me: "I want to right a wrong, lift the lid on it, the whole culture. I know, we all know, that the hacking and other stuff is endemic. Because there is so much intimidation. In the newsroom, you have people being fired, breaking down in tears, hitting the bottle."...

[kenny blankenship]

1. Unfortunately it did not make him sufficiently wary.