London - Rupert Murdoch pledged unwavering support to his scandal-hit
Sun on Friday and promised to launch a Sunday edition soon, to try to win back
angry staff in one of the biggest challenges to his more than 40 years as
proprietor at the British tabloid.
Murdoch
was in London to reassure staff after the company supplied information to
police which led to the arrest of some of the most senior journalists on the
paper in an investigation into illegal payments to public officials.
In
a typically bold move, the 80-year-old said that News Corp would soon launch a
Sun on Sunday paper to replace the News of the World which was abruptly shut
last year after an inquiry into telephone-hacking to get stories.
“I’ve
worked alongside you for 43 years to build The Sun into one of the world’s
finest papers,” Australian-born Murdoch said in an email to staff ahead of an
appearance on the newsroom floor which had been expected to be acrimonious.
“It
is a part of me and is one of our proudest achievements.
“My
continuing respect makes this situation a source of great pain for me, as I
know it is for each of you,” he said.
The
arrests sparked a damaging row within News Corp’s British newspaper arm not
seen since bitter and violent clashes in the 1980s over a radical overhaul of
print unions, which transformed the British industrial landscape during the era
of prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Coming
on the back of the closure of his 168-year-old News of the World tabloid, the
latest row could further weaken Murdoch’s influence in Britain and prompted
many to consider whether he would quit British media altogether.
“I
am staying with you all, in London, for the next several weeks to give you my
unwavering support,” Murdoch said.
“I
am confident we will get through this together and emerge stronger.”
Murdoch
brought the Sun in 1969 and swiftly turned it into a sensationalist daily
tabloid, renowned for political clout, campaigns, entertainment stories and sex
scandals, banner headlines and topless Page 3 girls.
At
the heart of his problem is the secretive committee set up by Murdoch to work
with the police, which has handed over information after trawling through 300
million emails, expense accounts and notebooks in the hunt for signs of
criminality.
Murdoch
said the committee would continue to work with the police and said illegal
activity would not be tolerated. However, in a climb-down he said those
journalists who had been arrested would have their suspensions lifted and could
return to work.
“I
am confident we can live by these commitments and still produce great
journalism,” he said. “We will build on The Sun’s proud heritage by launching
The Sun on Sunday very soon.”
“Finally
some good news,” one member of staff said. Another described the fact that the
arrested Sun employees could return to work as “heart-warming news”.
Immense pressure
It
was unclear whether his words would fully placate staff however, who feel they
have been hung out to dry after competing fiercely for years in a highly
pressurised environment to break news and keep the Sun ahead of its rivals.
“You
were under immense pressure to get a story,” one former Sun journalist told
Reuters on condition of anonymity. “You go to bed thinking what am I going to
bring in tomorrow. You had the news editors bellowing down the phone.”
Andrew
Neil, a Murdoch editor for 11 years on the Sunday Times, told Reuters that
the row had been a disaster and said the once all-powerful owner appeared to
have effectively lost control of the process.
“The
Sun has turned against Rupert Murdoch,” Neil told Reuters, ahead of the
announcement. “He has put in place things he cannot stop. He’s doing what he
had to do to save his corporation in the US but he’s losing the trust of his
UK journalists in the process.
“The
Sun was the (UK paper) most loyal to Murdoch. It was closest to his heart. Now
Sun journalists believe he has launched a witch hunt to protect himself. He
won’t be welcomed.”
Despite
the good news on the new Sunday edition, the distrust towards the internal
group, called the Management and Standards Committee (MSC), is likely to remain.
It
reports directly to executives in News Corp’s New York headquarters where staff
are less attached to Murdoch’s newspapers and where there is a clear sense of
shock at the antics of their British colleagues.
The
MSC believes it has had little choice but to cooperate with the police and
Murdoch said it would continue in that role.
It
was set up in part after two of its members, the award-winning former editor of
the Daily Telegraph Will Lewis and the PR executive Simon Greenberg, endured a
severe dressing-down from the female officer overseeing the investigation.
It
was also designed to show, particularly in the United States, that the group
was doing all it could to cooperate and to detoxify its assets.
The
most recent arrest of five senior staff, a police officer and other public
officials had also raised fears that the identities of anonymous sources were
handed over to police, breaking the journalistic code of protecting sources.
In
a sign of the depth of the rebellion, Trevor Kavanagh, the Sun’s associate
editor and previously seen as unfailingly loyal to Murdoch, toured broadcast
studios earlier this week to lambaste the company and the heavy-handedness of
the police who detained the staff in dawn raids in the early hours of last
weekend.