London - A lawyer who used to work for Rupert Murdoch's UK newspapers has defended the use of surveillance as a legitimate newsgathering technique.
Tom Crone told a British inquiry on Wednesday that there are probably no newspapers in Britain that don't occasionally put the subjects of articles under surveillance.
He says that if a source tells news editors about a pop star or an athlete having an affair it will almost certainly lead to the individual being watched.
Crone made the comments to the media ethics committee set up by Prime Minister David Cameron to propose ways to clean up Britain's soiled media culture, which has been shaken to its core by widespread phone hacking and other illegal activities.
The inquiry has heard of a wide range of media abuses. - Sapa-AP