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There was a media mogul, a police service and a prime minister

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The deputy chief of the London police service Scotland Yard John Yates resigned on 18 July in the wake of the resignation of his boss Paul Stephenson. The two officials stepped down in response to corruption charges emerging from the phone-hacking scandal involving Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspaper the News of the World.

The Austrian, British and Swiss press see national security threatened and call for a reform of Scotland Yard

‘Free hospitality at a health spa worth 13, 700 euros’ - Der Standard, Austria

Following the resignation of the London police chief Paul Stephenson and his deputy John Yates, the credibility of prime minister David Cameron hangs in the balance, the left-liberal Austrian daily writes: ‘Up til now the chief actors in British politics had been able to follow the Rupert Murdoch affair from a certain distance. The Australian media magnate and Her Majesty's ministers had certainly developed an unhealthily close relationship. But now things have gone beyond Murdoch's profits and the moral backbone of politicians. Now that the country's most important criminal investigation authority is headless, national security is at risk. The words of a police chief who opened himself to attack by accepting free hospitality at a health spa worth 13, 700 euros (£12, 000) certainly speak of frustration. But Cameron can no longer dodge the issue of whether his own judgement was sound. He must bid farewell once and for all to his old-boy networking with Murdoch's people’ (Sebastian Borger)

Read the full article ‘Es geht um Camerons Integrität’ on Der Standard online

‘Put spin aside and deal with cause of the problem’ - Financial Times, United Kingdom

Following the involvement of senior police officials in the phone-hacking scandal, the British police should take care to keep a greater distance to the media, in the opinion of the British liberal-conservative business paper: ‘The hacking affair points to a broader malaise in Britain. The understandable desire of the police to retain public confidence - a vital precondition for effective policing - has at times degenerated into an unhealthy obsession with media management. This has manifested itself in a reluctance to countenance the public admission of error in high-profile cases such as the deaths during police actions of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson.... The hacking affair feels like more of the same. The next head of the Met must put spin aside and deal with the cause of the problem. This will not be solved by curtailing police contact with the media. It means tackling the culture that makes such poor judgements possible’

Read the full article ‘Clearing out the Yard’ on the Financial Times online (subscribers only)

‘Governments turned a blind eye’ - Corriere del Ticino, Switzerland

With the resignation of the two most senior officials of the London police Scotland Yard the scandal has now gone beyond the level of the media, writes the Italian liberal daily: ‘After these two resignations the British will have trouble describing this simply as a storm in a teacup. It is more like a hurricane that in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal has shaken not only the foundations of Murdoch's media empire but also the British political establishment. For if until recently the scandal seemed to be about revelations of corruption and a lack of professional ethics, the resignations have now taken it to the institutional level. Politicians are now implicated too. In the dock sit British governments, labour and conservative, who were prepared to turn a blind eye to curry favour with the Murdoch newspapers’ (Gerardo Morina)

Read the full article ‘Scandalo Murdoch: un uragano’ on Corriere del Ticino online

28 countries, 300 medias, 1 press review on cafebabel.com exclusively courtesy of theeuro|topicsteam

Images: the infernal trio (cc)ssoosay/ Flickr; video (cc)euronewsde/ Youtube

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Translated from Abhörskandal: Murdoch-Orkan erschüttert Scotland Yard