The former NoW editor Andy Coulson said he would have rejected the Edward Snowden story if it had been offered to him when he was editing the newspaper, the Old Bailey has heard.

Coulson told the phone hacking trial on Tuesday he felt the news story about US National Security Agency surveillance, based upon a cache of documents leaked by the whistleblower Snowden, would have endangered lives.

He was being questioned by his defence counsel about the public interest tests applied to sensitive areas for newspapers, such as privacy breaches and law breaking.

"It's a topical example, Edward Snowden. If they came to me at the News of the World, I think I would have turned them down," he said, adding that the story on sweeping surveillance by the US government had "a potential for lives to be put at risk".

He said he knew that others would have run the story; "an awful lot of people" would have disagreed with him.

On privacy he said the rule of thumb at the News of the World was that "readers had a right to know about those seeking to get into [public] office, who they were, what they were about". He said: "Of course I ended up working on the other side of the fence, but I broadly maintained that position – people have a right to know about their politicians."

Coulson listed a number of "dark arts" that could have been used by the paper which, he said, would not have crossed the line, including concealed cameras, video bags, and "turning a mobile, spinning a mobile", which he explained was finding an address from a phone number.

Another "dark art" he listed was phone traffic, which he said was information on who was phoning who. Coulson said it would feature very rarely but that he should "have done more to interrogate the methods by which phone traffic was obtained".

He denied there was a bullying culture or that he was aggressive towards staff. "I'm not a bully," he said.

Coulson said he liked to encourage, giving bonuses, holidays and public praise, to get the best results from his staff. Although he did lose his temper occasionally he would apologise quickly when that happened.

He was asked about various senior staff on the paper including the former deputy editor Neil Wallis, who, the jury has heard, earned the nickname Wolfman because of an alleged tendency to shout at staff. "I think it's all to do with [Wallis's] beard and nothing more as far as I can tell."

Coulson described as nonsense claims made at the trial last week that a secret room used to sub-edit and lay out sensitive exclusives had to be sound proofed.

Last week counsel for the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman put it to the paper's former managing editor Stuart Kuttner that Wallis "shouted so loud when he was in there, everyone in the office could hear about the secret stories that were being talked about in the room".

Jurors were told by Coulson that Wallis remained on the paper after he [Coulson] quit as editor in 2007, but he would be surprised if sound proofing had been installed after he had left.

Coulson has denied three charges – one relating to phone hacking and two relating to the purchase of royal phone directories.

The trial continues.