Journalism's dark arts

Phone hacking and intercepts - the early days ... Intercepted phone conversation between Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise ends-up in New Idea ... Australian media's bugging and hacking heritage ... (corrected) 

BickeringAustralian actress Nicole Kidman was a victim of phone tapping by a paparazzi who then attempted to sell the story to the News of the World, according to US reports and court documents. 

The story, with transcript of the conversation, found it's way into New Idea just after Rupert Murdoch sold his interest in the magazine. 

On December 11, 1998 the New York Post reported that a "top photographer", Eric Ford, was charged with using a modified scanner to tape a call between Nicole and husband Tom Cruise.

The New York Post added that on the tape the couple are heard bickering.

Ford, who pleaded not guilty, was freed on $10,000 bail pending trial. 

Ford attempted to sell the information to the News of the World and to Globe Communications, according to court documents. 

The Los Angeles Times noted that according to the indictment, Ford had intercepted and recorded a conversation between Cruise and Kidman on February 5. Kidman was talking to Cruise from her car phone just after leaving the set of the movie Practical Magic.

About six weeks later, the indictment said, Ford pitched the story to the News of the World, which was closed last year. Sources said he allowed a tabloid representative to listen to the recording.

A deal with News of the World apparently fell through, the US attorney's office said, but on June 12 Ford sold the story to The Globe for an undisclosed amount. The Globe published the article on 30 June (Is Tom Cruise's Marriage Hanging by a Thread?).

The story reported that a tape circulating through Hollywood "allegedly contains a lovers' spat" between Cruise and his wife.

The article also said the couple's lawyers labeled the tape a phony.

The Globe (a supermarket tabloid) said its information about the conversation came from unidentified "insiders" or "sources", who professed to have heard the tape. Ford was not identified as a source.

According to People, Ford, 27, was charged under federal legislation with one count of intercepting a wire communication and two counts of disclosing the information.

Ford pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were brought in a Los Angeles court.

Ford could have faced a possible 15 years in prison if convicted, as each count carries a maximum sentence of five years. Prosecutors said both Cruise and Kidman (who was starring on Broadway at the time) would testify at a trial.

However, in a plea bargain Ford pleaded guilty to a single count.

The prosecutor told the court  that on March 16, 1998, Ford had allegedly disclosed the contents of the tape to representatives of News of the World, according to People.

On June 12, he revealed details of the call to Globe Communications, which published the material in the Globe, said Assistant US Attorney Wendy Clendening.

Peter Mathon, a spokesman for The Globe, said the tabloid did nothing "illegal or inappropriate". 

Ford was sentenced by US District Court judge Terry Hatter on Monday March 1, 1999 to six months at a halfway house, three years probation and 150 hours of community service.

He was also ordered not to possess electronic devices in the future.

Outside the court, the convicted photographer memorably told People magazine:

"I don't understand why Tom and Nicole haven't gone after The Globe yet. The Globe is the one who published this tape."

The story published in The Globe then found its way into News' New Idea.

The New Idea story included the transcript of the tapped conversation. 

Information about Ford's conviction came back into the public arena in 2005, when detectives were called to Kidman's Sydney home in February 2009 following the finding of a surveillance device by the star's chief bodyguard, Neil McMaster.  

CBS News in a story headlined Nicole Kidman Bugged in Australia reported that Ford's story had been sold to the Globe, but did not mention News of the World or New Idea.

McMullan: former Murdoch hackSubsequently, the Sydney celebrity photo journalist Jamie Fawcett spectacularly lost a defamation case he brought against Fairfax and Sun-Herald gossip correspondent Annette Sharp, in which the surveillance device played a starring role. 

Kidman was also targeted by self-confessed News of the World hacker and whistleblower Paul McMullan, while she was making Moulin Rouge.

Actor Hugh Grant, secretly taping Paul McMullan for his New Statesman expose, The Bugger Bugged, recorded him as saying:

"So I was sent to do a feature on Moulin Rouge at Cannes, which was a great send anyway. Basically my brief was to see who Nicole Kidman was shagging – what she was doing, poking through her bins and get some stuff on her. So Murdoch's paying her five million quid to big up the French and at the same time paying me £5.50 to fuck her up ... So all hail the master. We're just pawns in his game. How perverse is that?" 

Kidman has been a serial victim of phone tapping, on several continents. In 2002, after she and Cruise separated, tapes seized from Anthony (PI to the stars) Pellicano included many of her conversations.

On March 17, 2006, the Page Six gossip column in the New York Post reported Kidman was questioned by the FBI as one of the victims of phone tapping carried out by Pellicano. Telephone voice recordings of Tom Cruise speaking to his wife at the time, Nicole, were found when authorities first raided Pellicano's offices in 2002.

The tapes were allegedly made in 2001, shortly after the Cruises announced they were separating. 

New Idea has from time to time been used by various arms of Murdoch's empire to publish material regarded as too hot in the jurisdiction in which it was harvested.

The story can then be "followed-up" by other News' outlets and republished in the US or UK as though the dirty work had been done by the grubby Orstrayans. 

Classically, this happened with the Camillagate tapes. The story was broken in New Idea, and then retailed in Britain as though this was some sort of Australian publishing excess. 

Memorably, the tape recorded a conversation in which Prince Charles said he would like to be Mrs Parker-Bowles' "tampon". 

The reporting of the intimate phone conversation in January 1993 hastened the demise of Prince Charles and Diana's marriage. 

Justinian correspondent Alex Mitchell reported in the Fairfax press that New Idea editor Dulcie Boling said:

"I agonised very hard over whether or not New Idea should run those tapes.

I was personally very offended by some parts of the conversation, but decided people needed to know." 

Update on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 by Justinian

Correction. An earlier version of this story said that New Idea ran the Kidman-Cruise conversation at a time when the magazine was part of Rupert Murdoch's Pacific Magazines and Printing. Pacific Magazines and Printing sold its stake in New Idea in 1997 and the business was later purchased by Seven Media Group in 2001.