The times throws mud at the BBC to downplay phone-hacking revelations-The Guardian

For months, has The Times (who used to claim that it was "the paper of record") does not report on the many revelations about the phone-hacking scandal at her sister publication, the News of the world.

It has a series of stories that have completely undermined previous defence of it now that hacking is limited to a few "rogue reporter was" ignored.

There is no mention of the many victims of hacking that legal actions against the parent company, News Internationalhave begun.

Nor has it reported on the court press the private investigator, Glenn mulcaire, to reveal the names of executives who now ordered him to hack into the phones of the people.

But today, The Times publishes a page suddenly 7 lead story associated with the scandal-but with an extraordinary twist.

The head, says researcher accused by BBC reporter of ' corrupt ' business, he worked for Panorama, reveals much about the agenda of the paper.

It's going to last night Panorama Special, that the activities of a private investigator, Jonathan rees, who was alleged to have highlighted a range of illegal methods used to discover information for the news of the world to obtain.

The program specifically claimed that Rees was instructed to intercept e-mail messages by Alex marunchak, former executive editor of it now.

At one point in the program faced Panoramas reporter, Vivian White, Rees to ask him about his work for the now, such as access to bank accounts of people and police officers pay for information.

A belligerent Rees refused to answer the question. Instead, he countered: "what about the information that you have, that your company have?" He claimed that police had paid before Panorama walk out.

White, in his commentary, said: "Unlike Jonathan Rees, Panorama hadn't payed any police officers for information."

But what was this in the Times of today? No mention of Marunchak, neither of the other substantive material in the documentary Panorama on Rees have hired by now even after serving a life sentence for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The times choose instead, nose hair story on Rees the allegations about the BBC, reporting that Rees "worked for Panorama on at least two programs in the early 1990s."

He claims that he was once asked to do undercover work on kidnappings. But he, and The Times, have no evidence of that claim.

The story even admits that "friends of" Mr Rees said that "he had no documents or invoices to prove his claim." And the BBC can't find all the supporting documents of Rees worked for it.

Note How The Times story to fit two calendars News International is descending. It throws mud at the BBC, yet again. It minimizes the misconduct by the news of the world, yet again.

The real story revealed by Panorama is that a sixth World news was involved in the commissioning of illegal activities. That is the story a paper of record must report, isn't it?

And guess what? The other Wapping paper that has failed to note of the phone-hacking story is also doing the same anti-Panorama story. Of the Sun page 26 lead is headlined BBC's own goal on news ' spy ' and even manages to bury any mention of the news of the world until the last paragraph.

It is wonderful how Rupert Murdoch's papers always manage to sing the same hymn book without any need for him to get them from the melody to remember.

To a fairer, sober assessment of the programme, see the report of the Financial Times , e-mail claims deepen hacking scandal.

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