London - Rupert Murdoch will address hostile journalists at
his British newspaper arm on Friday, many of them fearful after the recent
arrests of senior staff at the mass-selling Sun tabloid over allegations of
widespread criminality.
Murdoch, who flew into Britain late on Thursday, is expected
to try and quell growing anger and anxiety among reporters by committing to
keeping the Times and the Sun, Britain’s top-selling daily newspaper.
However, he is also likely to say that the company has no
option but to cooperate with the police after a phone-hacking scandal last year
forced the closure of the News of the World tabloid.
Murdoch arrived at his east London Wapping base on Friday
and is due to meet staff later.
On the agenda will be why he formed an internal committee to
trawl through 300 million emails, 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 the internal group, known as the Management
and Standards Committee (MSC), was part of Murdoch’s attempt to get back on top
of the situation in Britain after he closed the Sun’s sister title under a wave
of condemnation that the group had broken the law and sought to cover it up.
But such close cooperation 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 told Reuters. “Nobody has
said: ’You can’t do this to journalists’. A lot of people are angry.”
Another said that after the initial shock of the arrests,
many staff were now more anxious than angry and were keen to hear Murdoch
commit to his British titles.
In the most recent arrests, five senior Sun journalists 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, told
Reuters.
The very public spat has also exposed the widening division
within News Corp between the more freewheeling and highly aggressive culture
of London newsrooms and 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
former Daily Telegraph editor Will Lewis and the PR executive Simon Greenberg,
reports directly to New York and is under instruction 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.
Sue Akers told a parliamentary committee that she had met
Lewis and Greenberg to discuss “our very different interpretations of the
expression ’full cooperation’.”
“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 now leaving no room for doubt over its
seriousness in confronting the allegations.
A person with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters
this week that it had found evidence of sustained criminality involving tens of
thousands of pounds, meaning Murdoch will have little option but to cooperate
with police.