Media tycoon Murdoch arrives in London to quell staff backlash
staff he intended to keep the newspapers and would listen to their concerns.
On the agenda would be why he formed an internal committee to trawl through 300 million e-mails, expense accounts and notebooks in the hunt for signs of illegality, which led to the arrests of some of the most senior and revered staff on the Sun tabloid.
The formation of an internal group, known as the Man- agement and Standards Committee (MSC), was part of Murdoch’s attempt to get back on top in Britain after he had to close the Sun’s sister title the News of the World last year over a phone hacking scandal.
But such close co-operation with the police has infuriated staff and sparked talk of a witch-hunt among journalists and their sources by a media owner who used to champion their work.
“The management has done nothing to protect us from this appalling invasion of our work,” one company insider said. “Nobody has said: ‘You can’t do this to journalists.’ A lot of people are angry.”
In the most recent arrests, five senior Sun jour nalists were held, along with a police officer and other public officials, prompting staff and lawyers to complain that the details of anonymous sources were being handed over to the police.
“Every media organisation has a duty to assist the police in uncovering serious crime. But it also has a fundamental duty to protect the sources that have been cultivated by its journalists under a promise of anonymity,” Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent human rights and media lawyer, said.
The very public spat has also exposed the widening divi- sion within News Corp, between the more freewheeling and highly aggressive culture of the London newsrooms and the corporate headquarters in New York, where staff have been shocked by the tactics employed by British staff.
The under-fire committee, which includes the award winning jour nalist and for mer Daily Telegraph editor Will Lewis and the PR executive Simon Greenberg, reports di- rectly to New York and is under instructions to investigate the allegations thoroughly.
Far from apologising, the company said it felt it had to act after Lewis and Greenberg endured an uncomfortable meeting with the officer overseeing the inquiry last year.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the British Metropolitan Police Service Sue Akers told a parliamentary committee that she had met Lewis and Greenberg to discuss “our very different interpretations of the expression ‘full co-operation’”.
“Subsequent to that meeting, I can say that relationships have been much better,” she said.
The police were themselves heavily criticised for their initial response to allegations that Murdoch journalists had hacked into phones, with the two most senior London officers standing down over the affair.
And the force is leaving no room for doubt over its seriousness in confronting the allegations. – Reuters