News International phone hacking scandal 2007. "The "News of the World" legal manager Tom Crone attended virtually every meeting of my legal team and was given full access to the Crown Prosecution Service's evidence files." according to Clive Goodman's letter. The effect of the phone hacking scandal originating with the "News of the World" also raised wider questions about the ethics employed by companies under Murdoch's ownership, as well as the effects the scandal will have on the ethics employed specifically by print journalists and to some extent the wider world of journalism. Murdoch had previously been criticised for building a media empire that lacked
2009–2011 News of the World phone hacking scandal investigations in bringing the revelations about phone hacking into the open. Watson was concerned by alleged press misconduct, as were his colleagues Chris Bryant, the MP for Rhondda, Khalid Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, and Sion Simon, then MP for Birmingham Erdington. Watson joined the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in 2009, under the chairmanship of Conservative MP John Whittingdale, specifically to pose questions to leading figures in News International about the ethics at both "The Sun" and the "News of the World," and allowing him to quiz Andy Coulson, who was director of communications for the Conservative Party, about