Surely not the Guardian?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph....son-Inquiry-live.html

/// Guardian investigations editor David Leigh said his phone hacking was justified. ///

He also went on to say:

/// The PCC is a "fraud and a bogus institution," Leigh says, and should be abolished. It is only good at circulating 'stop harassing' notices to the press, and acting as a "fixer" between the government, royals and newspapers (It's not quite clear what he means by this). ///

/// I am resigned to seeing the tabloid cockroaches doused with a spot of legal insecticide. Driven by greedy and cynical proprietors,///

What a 'nice' person he seems to be also.

/// Leigh says now he was being "blunt and provocative" to stimulate a debate and so readers didn't think it was a Guardian "holier than thou" lecture. That's why he used examples of his own questionable behaviour. Should Leveson use it as evidence? No, Leigh says - it's a sweeping assertion to get the reader's attention, not evidence. ///

Now there's a surprise.

[jno]

he's made no claim to be a nice person. He has claimed to have hacked the phone of a corrupt arms company executive, which he says is different from hacking the phones of murder victims.

Do you disagree with that proposition?

[rojash]

Nobody (as far as I know) has ever condemned the press for legitimate investigative journalism. It's the constant use of PIs, hacking, conning jsut to get a story about a footballer's sex life, or a scoop on the innermost thoughts of a grieving family, that most right-minded people object to.
I did notice that the DM was the biggest user (by volume) of illegally obtained info - and I can't remember the DM ever producing any serious investigative journalism. (Even the NOW managed to produce some).

[Gromit]

There is a danger that because some crappy tabloids have used questionable methods to obtain private information from the families of murder victims and footballers, that the good investigative journal used to find corruption and illegality will also clamped down on.

The Guardian editor was trying to make the distinction between journalism and gossip. Some things are worth finding out, like jonathan Aitkin perjurying himself in court. The Guardian employed a private investigator who was able to obtain his phone details which proved he was not where he claimed to be. It proved his case was a pack of lies. The Guardian's methods were a bit dubious, but it gathered evidence that enable a conviction. The sad thing about the phone hacking controversy, is that they employed dubious methods to try to find out stuff that was mostly worthless. They crossed the line just to print gossip and trivia.