UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: Rupert Murdoch is due to visit London headquarters of News International to address staff anger over the arrests of Sun newspaper journalists

Record ID: 858255

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: Rupert Murdoch is due to visit London headquarters of News International to address staff anger over the arrests of Sun newspaper journalists
  • Date: 17th February 2012
  • Summary: PRINTING PRESSES ROLLING, COPIES OF 'THE SUN' ON CONVEYOR BELT FRONT PAGE OF 'THE SUN' WITH HEADLINE "HORSE DOPE SENSATION"
  • Embargoed: 3rd March 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • City:
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Business,Communications,Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVACEV683Z582D2CWAADHGA1F3MU
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is due in London on Thursday (February 16) and expected at the Sun newspaper offices on Friday to try to quell a backlash from staff who have accused News Corp and police, as well as the octogenarian himself, of conducting an unparalleled witch hunt into journalists and their sources.
    An investigation into Murdoch's top-selling British newspaper, the Sun, has uncovered evidence that it paid tens of thousands of pounds in retainers to public officials for tipoffs, a source with knowledge of the probe said on Wednesday (February 16).
    Much of the evidence passed to police has been provided by Murdoch's own News Corp group, and deepens a crisis at the Sun, where officers have arrested nine former and current senior staff in recent weeks over illegal payments.
    Murdoch has been trying to regain the high ground ever since an outcry last summer - over revelations that his journalists had hacked the voicemails of crime victims and their families - forced him to close the profitable News of the World title and abort a planned multibillion-dollar buyout of Britain's biggest satellite broadcaster.
    "This is not about sources or expenses, this is an investigation into serious suspected criminality over a sustained period," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
    "It involves regular cash payments totalling tens of thousands of pounds a year for several years to public officials, some of whom were effectively on retainers to provide information. In totality it involves a six-figure sum."
    News Corp and the police both declined to comment.
    Much of the anger within News International, Murdoch's British newspaper arm grouping the Times and Sunday Times along with the Sun, is directed at the unit set up by News Corp to root out evidence of illegal behaviour.
    The Management and Standards Committee (MSC) was set up at the height of the earlier furore over phone hacking and was designed to rescue the company's reputation and show that it was cooperating with the police.
    The close relationship between the MSC and police, where officers work out of the same building with the lawyers and forensic experts of the MSC, has infuriated the newspaper journalists who feel they have been hung out to dry.
    The National Union of Journalists said it had been approached by News International staff who were looking into whether they could legally challenge the authority of the MSC.

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