The Guardian (probably prairie dog staffers’ favourite newspaper in the whole wide world) has broken a series of stories about how a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, the News Of The World, may have screwed up a major murder investigation a few years ago. The News of The World (the largest circulating tabloid in the English-speaking world) ended up paying a few  sheckles after it was learned it had hacked the cell phones of 24 celebrities, did the same thing in 2002: while Scotland Yard was investigating the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl, the NotW got her cell phone number, hacked her voicemail box, and listened to messages from relatives and friends imploring her to call home.

And – this is the freaky part – then the reporters deleted some of the messages, and the parents thought that she was still alive. After all, how did her voice mails get deleted? (The girl’s body was found that September)

Yeah. You got the story. Forget that you’d driven the girl’s parents insane with false hope – that you later exploited on a story without telling them that it was actually YOUR REPORTERS who did that. That’s interfering with an active police investigation. And The Guardian illustrates, this wasn’t the only time they have done that.

There’s no sense in trying to provide one specific link to this story: (The Guardian — that’s the latest on the story). The Guardian is full of the best journalism around – and their investigation is a lot better than the official investigation British Prime Minister David Cameron is favouring: where the London police will investigate themselves over the matter, while Rupert Murdoch investigates himself (‘I see no wrongdoing.’) Of course, when your former press secretary is a former high-up mucky muck in Rupert Murdoch`s News Corporation, then, yeah, you`re more dependent on your media than you are on your voters.

And if you`re wondering about the James Bond reference, check out, arguably, Pierce Brosnan`s finest hour as 007. Jonathan Pryce has rarely been better.