Dear Commons Community.
The Huffington Post is reporting that the criminal investigation into British tabloid skullduggery turned full force on a second Rupert Murdoch publication Saturday, with the arrest of four current and former journalists from The Sun on suspicion of bribing police. A serving police officer was also held, and authorities searched the newspaper’s offices as part of an investigation into illegal payments for information. The investigation into whether reporters illegally paid police for information is running parallel to a police inquiry into phone hacking by Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World.
The phone hacking scandal disgraced Rupert Murdoch, his News Corporation empire (Fox News) and members of his senior staff when it was reported that days after the disappearance of 13-year old Milly Dowler, News of the World began intercepting Dowler’s voicemail messages. The paper deleted old messages to make room for new ones, leading some to speculate that she was alive. The Guardian reported: “The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper’s own intervention”
For a timeline of the evolution of the News Corporation and the hacking scandal, check out The Anatomy of a Phone Hacking Scandal provided by the New York Times.
Tony
Dear Commons Community,
As an update to this posting, on February 12, 2012, the New York Times reported another string of arrests associated with Rupert Murdoch’s Sun tabloid.
The article states that eight people were arrested and that:
“The arrests were made on the suspicion of corruption in conjunction with a search at the homes of those arrested and at the newspaper’s offices, police detectives said in a statement.
The five Sun employees were not identified by the police, but the newspaper’s staff was told that they were a deputy editor, Geoff Webster; the chief reporter, John Kay; the chief foreign correspondent, Nick Parker; a picture editor, John Edwards; and a reporter, John Sturgis, according to an internal message. ”
Check out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/world/europe/8-arrested-in-hacking-inquiry-tied-to-murdochs-british-papers.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22
Tony