BBC’s weekly magazine has a pretty cool story this week about the lengths British tabloid reporters will go to to get a scoop. It’s both bad-ass and worrying.

How does a reporter get a scoop? Nurturing contacts, wearing out shoe leather, poring over documents. And for some, the toolkit may include phone hacking, honeytraps and covert recording.

I remember hearing once that tabloids like the National Enquirer have some of the most robust fact-checking infrastructures, because the stakes and the likelihood of getting sued are so high. I don’t know how the British libel rules compare to the US, but check out what some of these reporters have done:

The exciting:

In 2003, Daily Mirror reporter Ryan Parry used false references to get a job as a footman in Buckingham Palace. His aim was to uncover security lapses at the Palace in the run-up to President George W Bush’s visit.

He revealed details of the President’s bedroom as well as the Queen’s breakfast habits. Eventually the Queen won a court order preventing the Mirror from revealing any more.

The worrying:

Tessa Mayes, who has worked as an investigative journalist for newspapers and TV shows, said… ‘If I had said no, I wouldn’t have got to work on those stories. It’s not unknown for journalists to sleep with their sources in order to meet a deadline. As it happens I haven’t needed or wanted to do that.’

The silly:

And it is widely claimed that in 1994 Rebekah Wade – then a News of the World reporter, now editor of the Sun – dressed as a cleaner and hid in a toilet for two hours in order to nab an early copy of the Sunday Times.

The Sunday Times, housed in the same building as the News of the World, was serialising a biography of Prince Charles, and NoTW editor Piers Morgan wanted to know what it said. John Witherow, editor of the Sunday Times, is alleged to have shouted at Morgan: ‘Theft isn’t journalism.’

Read the whole thing.