Book review: dial m for murdoch: news corporation and thecorruption of britain

Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers had been hacking phones, blagging information and causing emotional stress to those in the public eye for years, but it was only after a trivial report about Prince William’s knee in 2005 that detectives stumbled on a criminal conspiracy. A five-year cover-up then concealed and muddied the truth. Dial M for Murdoch aims to give the first connected account of the extraordinary lengths to which the News Corporation went to “put the problem in a box” (in James Murdoch’s words), how its efforts to maintain and extend its power were aided by its political and police friends, and how it was all finally exposed. Burcu Baykurt values Watson and Hickman’s extensive illustration the press should not do in a democratic country.