THE CROOK REPORT
ITV Axes Truth In New Daniel Morgan Murder Meets Phone Hacking Drama
“This is a strange and deceptive piece of our recent history. One with so many layers to it. I thought, as someone who is interested in politics, I understood everything that happened. I did not. It’s a fight for the truth that really shocked me. That is why it matters to tell this story now in an age where the truth seems more in danger than ever. I hope we find a way to do justice to the complexity of what happened and of celebrating the incredible reporting that sits underneath it.”
So says scriptwriter Jack Thorne who has penned a new 7-part drama for ITV on Guardian reporter Nick Davies’ investigation into the phone hacking scandal that exploded in 2011 leading to a public inquiry.
Davies did for Rupert Murdoch’s News of The World that year and his investigation has cost other tabloids hundreds of millions in legal fees and, as ever, far less in damages for the victims.
With so many royal and celebrity targets of hacking to drape around the lime-light loving reporter and his editor Alan Rusbridger it seems, well, a bit greedy to have added a parallel story line involving the notorious unsolved axe murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan in 1987.
In a recent press release announcing the forthcoming drama called The Hack, which will be shown in Australia too, where Murdoch controls much of the media, ITV said this:
Set between 2002 and 2012, the drama deftly interweaves two real life stories, the work of investigative journalist Nick Davies, played by David Tennant, who uncovered evidence of phone hacking at the News of the World, and running parallel, the story of the investigation into the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, led by former Met Police Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook, played by Robert Carlyle.
Great, but will it be the full monty? The whole truth about Cook, a thoroughly bent detective driven by his own dark materials, hubris and hypocrisy who The Guardian protected for its own controversial reasons.
It doesn’t look like it. And here’s why.
