Phone hacking scandal: the full resignation speeches visualised and listed ~ Technology Update

Monday, July 18, 2011

Phone hacking scandal: the full resignation speeches visualised and listed

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Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks, Les Hinton and Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson - see what their resignation statements had in common
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The News of the World phone hacking scandal has prompted resignation after resignation, and with each one has come a statement, issued to the press.

So far, we have had four major resignations in the wake of the scandal:

• Andy Coulson, Prime Minister's director of communications, Friday 21 January 2011 | full statement
• Rebekah Brooks, News International chief executive, Friday 15 July, 2011 | full statement
• Les Hinton, CEO of Dow Jones & Company, Friday 15 July, 2011 | full statement
• Sir Paul Stephenson, Metropolitan police commissioner, Sunday 17 July 2011 | full statement

And with each statement, the language has been carefully planned and calibrated to say exactly what resignee wants to get across to the world.

What's striking is how short most of them are: Andy Coulson was 158 words, Rebekah Brooks' 362, Les Hinton was 255. Paul Stephenson's is the one that bucks the trend, with a mighty 1,679. Arguably, Stephenson - as the one resignee who didn't work for News Corp - had more he wanted to say and it possibly unbalances the comparison with the other statements

Using Wordle.net, we've mapped each statement, above. Wordle is a simple tool - it just counts the number of words in each statement. Admittedly, that doesn't provide a complete analysis - it doesn't help with the weight or emphasis that each word's given. But the results are still intriguing, not least for which words are missing and those that are chosen.

Les Hinton did talk of his "sorrow" at hearing of the news from across the Atlantic., but only one said "sorry" - Rebekah Brooks.