Daily Mirror publisher Trinity Mirror is conducting a review of its editorial controls and procedures in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that triggered the closure of the News of the World.
The review will encompass both the group’s regional newspaper division and its national newspapers the Daily Mirror, The People and Sunday Mirror.
The move comes after the national titles were hit by a series of allegations over phone-hacking and the use of private investigators.
Both Lib Dem MP Adrian Sanders and Tory MP Louise Mensch have claimed the Daily Mirror was suspected of using phone-hacking to reveal the affair between Sven-Goran Eriksson and Ulrika Jonsson in 2003.
Trinity Mirror and the newspaper’s former editor Piers Morgan have denied the claims, with the company insisting that ‘our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC [Press Complaints Commission] code of conduct.”
Commenting on the review, a Trinity Mirror spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that we’re conducting a review of editorial controls and procedures.”
The company was unable to give any further details of the review but the Financial Times reports that it is being led by Trinity’s group legal director Paul Vickers, who will report back to the Trinity board in mid-September.
The FT also reports that Trinity’s shares fell 9.8 per cent yesterday following concerns that ‘the phone-hacking scandal that has ripped through Rupert Murdoch’s News International was not isolated to one newspaper group”.
Speaking on the BBC’s Newsnight last Friiday, former Daily Mirror journalist James Hipwell, who was jailed for insider dealing in 2006, claimed phone-hacking was widespread at the newspaper when he worked there – claims that Trinity said were ‘totally unsubstantiated”.
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