Daily Mail publisher launches review of editorial controls

The publisher of the Daily Mail, Associated Newspapers, has launched a review of editorial controls and procedures amid the ongoing phone-hacking scandal.

Associated Newspapers, which also publishes the Mail on Sunday and the Metro, said in a statement that Liz Hartley, the company's head of legal service, and Eddie Young, a former group legal adviser, will work together on the review.

The company would not confirm whether the review was linked to phone hacking or any other specific issue.

The announcement follows the launch of a similar review by Trinity Mirror, which publishes the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, People, and a host of local titles.

A source at the company stressed that the review was a response to a general concern about practices within the media industry and not a specific investigation, but Trinity Mirror is currently under the spotlight over allegations of phone hacking levelled against it by former employees and recently by Heather Mills.

A 2006 report by the Information Commissioner's Office titled "What Price Privacy Now?" put the Daily Mail top of a list of newspapers that had used the services of private detectives. According to the report, 58 journalists at the Mail racked up 952 transactions with investigators.

Associated Newspapers stablemate the Sunday people was next on the list with 802 transactions from 50 journalists.

The Daily Mirror was third with 681 transactions from 45 journalists.

Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of the publisher, told MPs last month during a parliamentary select committee hearing that he had never knowingly published a story based on information from gleaned from hacking or other criminal means.

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