Is it possible for a news story to be both widely known and not really known at all? The News of the World phone-hacking scandal may be such a paradox. Everyone knows the rudiments of the story – when it emerged that News International (now News Group) employees had engaged in phone hacking and police bribery, over a period of years and involving thousands of victims. It led to the shuttering of the News of the World in 2011, and a spate of high-profile resignations. And it ruined the lives of some of those dragged into it. But the complexities of the case, a sprawling fractal of crime and corruption, remain, to this day, widely underacknowledged.
It’s easy to see why the subject would have appealed to Jack Thorne, the acclaimed TV writer known for Channel 4’s This Is England miniseries and this year’s timely, debate-provoking Adolescence. Along with co-writer Annalisa Dinnella (Sex Education), Thorne explores parts of the phone-hacking scandal – including the tenacious journalism that brought it to the public’s attention – in ITV’s new seven-part drama The Hack. It’s one of the broadcaster’s best series in years: a fast-paced but substantive drama that seems poised to ignite a national conversation. “This is a strange, deceptive piece of our recent history,” said Thorne, ahead of the series’ release. “One with so many layers to it. 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.”
