Compelling stuff:

“We used to talk to career criminals all the time. They were our sources,” says another former reporter from the paper who also worked for Murdoch’s daily tabloid, the Sun. “It was a macho thing: ‘My contact is scummier than your contact.’ It was a case of: ‘Mine’s a murderer!’ On the plus side, we always had a resident pet nutter around in case anything went wrong.”

Provided that Reuters’ Georgina Prodhan and Kate Holton have properly sourced all of this, and I’d be amazed if they haven’t, it’s damning.