Dial M for Murdoch

Watson, a Labour Member of Parliament who sat on the select committee investigating the matter, and Hickman, a journalist at The Independent, wrote about the phone hacking at News International and the response to it.

The factual narrative covers the interception of voicemail messages by journalists and private investigators working for News of the World and other titles, initially presented by the company as the work of one rogue reporter after the 2007 conviction of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire; the civil litigation by hacking victims that produced documents contradicting that account; the Guardian reporting that kept the story alive; the revelation that the phone of Milly Dowler, a murdered schoolgirl, had been hacked, which changed public opinion decisively; the closure of the News of the World; the withdrawal of the BSkyB bid; and the Leveson Inquiry.

The authors' argument concerns institutional failure. The Metropolitan Police conducted an initial investigation that did not pursue the evidence it held, and senior officers had social and employment connections with the company. The Press Complaints Commission accepted the company's account. Politicians of both parties cultivated the company and were reluctant to act against it. The select committee's inquiries were obstructed.

Watson was personally targeted by the company's investigators during this period, which he documents.

The book is written by a participant who was a political opponent of the company and it argues a position. The core facts were established by the Leveson Inquiry, by criminal trials and by civil settlements, so the account is corroborated even where the framing is partisan. The general lesson concerns the capacity of a concentrated media owner to deter investigation by police, regulators and politicians simultaneously.