Two years on from the Guardian's first story on the extent of phone hacking, the full truth of what was going on at the News of the World is being stripped bare. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
• The Q&A is now closed. Thanks to all who took part. We've collected Alan's answers to your questions at the bottom of this article
Sometimes the forward momentum of newspaper investigations is virtually invisible to the naked eye. It's lucky that Nick Davies is an exceptionally patient reporter because there must have been times during the past two years when he felt no one wanted to hear what he was so clearly saying.
Nick's first story on the full extent of the phone-hacking scandal was published almost exactly two years ago – on 8 July 2009. It was – or should have been – explosive. It reported that a major global media company – News International – had paid out £1m secretly to settle legal cases which revealed criminality within their business.
Instead of going back to parliament or the regulator to admit that they had been misled, the company's chairman, James Murdoch, signed a large cheque to stop the truth coming out.
With any non-media company this revelation would have led to blanket coverage, calls for resignations, immediate action by the regulator etc. Instead there was a kind of ghostly silence.
The Metropolitan police – led by Assistant Commissioner John Yates – announced an inquiry. And then, within the space of a few hours, he announced the inquiry was over and there was nothing to inquire into.
News International, doubtless pleased by this clean bill of health, came out all guns blazing, denouncing the Guardian's deliberate attempts to mislead the public. Most of the press decided it wasn't much of a story. The regulator decided there was nothing wrong. And many MPs were sympathetic in private, but indicated there was little in it for them in sticking their heads above any public parapet.
And so we settled in for the long haul. Week by week, story by story, column by column, doorstep by doorstep, Nick Davies prised open the truth. There were some other heroes: a handful of lawyers and MPs and a few journalists – on the New York Times, Independent, FT, BBC and Channel 4. But it was pretty lonely work for those at the heart of it. And there were plenty of people yawning from the sidelines, claiming it was all a bit obsessive.
But investigative journalism is a bit obsessive. Sometimes it works by small, incremental, barely perceptible steps.
Scroll forward two years and the full truth of what was going on at the News of the World is dramatically being stripped bare. Some kind of mental dam has been broken. MPs, journalists, regulators and police are speaking confidently again as they should. The palpably intimidating spectre of an apparently untouchable media player has been burst.
But what now? How can we make sure that we never again have this kind of dominant force in British public life?
One positive step yesterday was the announcement that there would be at least one public inquiry into what on earth was going on within the Metropolitan police.
There are two outstanding issues that will affect the future of the media in this country. One is the threatened imminent decision to wave through the deal which would give Rupert Murdoch total control over the biggest commercial broadcaster as well as 40% of the national press.
Anyone who reads into the story of the last two years can see that's a terrible idea. But – on the narrow grounds on which Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron are fighting – it's a complex issue mixing competition law, Ofcom, plurality and politics.
And then there's the question of how the press should be regulated. There will be plenty of calls for statutory regulation in the days and weeks to come.
I don't like the idea. I resist the notion of state licensing of journalists – and I struggle to see how there is any easy definition of "journalist" in 2011. So I would like to see self-regulation continue.
But I admit this is shaky ground. When the PCC came out with its laughable report into phone hacking in November 2009 (which, to its credit, it finally retracted yesterday) I warned that this was going to be dangerous for the cause of self regulation and I quit the PCC's code committee in protest.
The PCC's weakness is that it doesn't have the powers of a regulator. So it should either abandon the claim to be a regulator – and carry on doing its valuable work of mediation and adjudication – or else it has to acquire powers of compelling witnesses, calling evidence etc. But how does it do that without becoming laboriously legalistic and horrendously expensive to run?
These are some of the issues now coming down the slipway and I look forward to discussing them.
Comments will be off on this article until 2.30pm on Thursday when Alan Rusbridger will be answering questions live online for two hours.
Oborne goes on to allege you also warned Nick Clegg about Coulson's activities.
Is this true? If so, what were Cameron and Clegg told that is now in the public domain? What have they known all along?
Peter Oborne is right. Before the election it was common knowledge in Fleet Street that an investigator used by the NoW during Andy Coulson's editorship was on remand for conspiracy to murder. We couldn't report that due to contempt of court restrictions, but I thought it right that Cameron should know before he took any decisions about taking Andy Coulson into Number 10. So I sent word via an intermediary close to Cameron. And I also told Clegg personally.
Does the Guardian have any evidence of phone hacking happening at other British newspapers ? If so, once the dust settles over NotW, will the Guardian widen its continuing investigation to these papers too?
I think the bulk of Nick Davies's evidence relates to the NotW. He did write a more general chapter on the so-called dark arts of Fleet Street in his book, Flat Earth News.
To be frank, it's taken him all this time to land this one, so he's hardly had time to look elsewhere so far
The past few days have had me genuinely wondering about what, if any, licensing requirements there are on running a newspaper.
If a broadcaster had been up to what the NoW were doing it would quite rightly have been pulled off the air. So what exactly does a newspaper have to do to lose its right to publish in the UK?
I'm anxious about the notion of state licensing for the press. We got rid of that more than 150 years ago (date, someone?) and I wouldn't want to see it back. In an age when anyone can call thsemselves a journalist I see difficulties of definition. Would Huffington Post have to get a licence? So, I think it's probably unworkable as well as undesirable. But I'd be interested to hear other views.
Do you agree with Oborne that this renders Cameron's position questionable?
No - but I do think it showed lousy judgement. I don't think I was the only person to warn Cameron in advance about Coulson, incidentally.
Many congratulations on your determined coverage of this story. Also, do you ever fear retribution from Mr Murdoch, as many people apparently do?
Thank you. But Nick Davies is the hero of the hour. I honestly don't think Murdoch would win much public sympathy if he started going after the people who have been criticising him or the NoW this week.
Media regulation. I don't like the idea of state regulation either, but we've seen that self-regulation in its current form just doesn't work. Do you see a future role for, e.g. Ofcom in providing or overseeing independent press regulation?
I agree that this hasn't been a wonderful advertisement for self-regulation. The short answer is that, no, the PCC can't go on as it is. Its credibility is hanging by a thread.
We did say this back in November 2009 when the PCC came out with its laughable report into phone-hacking. We said in an editorial that this was a dangerous day for press regulation - and so it's turned out.
The PCC has this week withdrawn that report and has a team looking at the issues and at the mistakes it's made in the past.
I don't know how Ofcom could do the job without falling into the category of statutory regulation. Does anyone else?
It suggests to me that, despite the strong words in the Commons yesterday, most politicians and media outlets are still frightened of hitting Rupert where it hurts. What do you think?
All credit to Ed Miliband, who was pretty forthright I thought. And I don't think anyone could say that Tom Watson, Paul Farrelly, Chris Bryant, Nicholas Soames or Simon Hughes pulled their punches (I didn't see all of the debate). I don't think that would have happened two years ago. And, this week, the Telegraph, Mail, Independent and FT have all been full-throated. Even the Times has written a leader being critical of its sister paper. So I do see a sea-change.
Do you worry that the consequence of all this, after the inquiries, and any possible prosecutions, will be legislation that, might hinder legitimate journalism?
Well, I really hope not. That's been my fear all along: that, by being so feeble back in 2009, the PCC was inviting politicians to go for something more restrictive. So - for the sake of all reporters engaged in legitimate journalism - it's really important that we find a way of re-making the PCC into something that has credibility.
What do you think, David?
General question on what rules we have at the Guardian.
We don't pay for stories. Reporters are told not to use private investigators without my permission. A very rare example: I agreed to use someone outside the paper, and that was over evidence of corrupt dealings by a global corporation. The Guardian did not feature on the list of newspapers exposed by the Information Commissioner in 2006.
Generally, I think the greater the possible intrusion by journalists the higher the public interest hurdle has to be.
I like the guidelines suggested by former spook Sr David Omand for his trade. I think they're good questions for any news organisation.
• There must be sufficient cause – the intrusion needs to be justified by the scale of potential harm, which might be result from it.
• There must be integrity of motive - the intrusion must be justified in terms of the public good which would follow from publication.
• The methods used must be in proportion to the seriousness of story and its public interest, using the minimum possible intrusion.
• There must be proper authority – any intrusion must be authorised at a sufficiently senior level and with appropriate oversight.
• There must be a reasonable prospect of success: fishing expeditions are not justified.
I did, incidentally, suggest that the PCC might incorporate those guidelines into the PCC's editorial codebook, but got a polite rejection.
Celebrities and sports stars have long complained about a lack of privacy in this country - with some formula 1 drivers emigrating purely to get peace and quiet elsewhere. Do we need new privacy laws to match the much stronger ones found in many parts of Europe? In your opinion what form should they take?
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