Four Murdoch Journalists Arrested.Ex-Editor on Trial

 

Memo From Britain

British Tabloids on Trial, Along With Ex-Editors

By STEVEN ERLANGER and STEPHEN CASTLE

The trial of former editors in Rupert Murdoch's media empire is expected to be aggressive and detailed, with the potential for yet more revelations about the inner workings of the competitive world of British tabloid journalism. 

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Four Murdoch Journalists Arrested

Former and current Sun employees were detained along with a serving police officer.

By Daniel Politi | Posted Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, at 2:21 PM ET

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A copy of British Top-selling tabloid the Sun front page made in central London on December 10, 2011 shows a picture of Britain Prime Minister David Cameron dressed as wartime leader Winston Churchill with the defiant headline "Up Eurs -- Bulldog PM sticks up for Britain"
Photo by CARL COURT/AFP/Getty Images

Police arrested four current and former journalists for British tabloid the Sun along with one serving police officer as part of an investigation into a cash-for-information scheme. Making it clear that the investigation is far from over, police also searched offices of the newspaper’s publisher, News International, as part of a probe into widespread corruption and illegal phone hacking, reports the Guardian.

The arrests effectively spread the scandal that has already resulted in the closing of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World “to Britain’s best-selling newspaper,” notes the Associated Press. Yet the Guardian cites sources emphasizing that the arrests had nothing to do with phone hacking and were solely linked to allegations that police officers received payments in exchange for information.

The police said the arrests were carried out thanks to information it got from News Corporation, which has been trying to clean up its image. “News Corporation made a commitment last summer that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated,” the company’s Management and Standards Committee said in a statement confirming the arrests of four “current and former employees” of the Sun, reports Reuters.

The BBC hears from a source at News International that the information passed on to police was part of an effort at “draining the swamp” and restore integrity to the company. The police has made it clear that it is not trying to obtain sources from the journalists. The Guardian and the BBC both say that the arrested journalists are the Sun’s crime editor, Mike Sullivan, its former managing editor Graham Dudman, the executive editor, Fergus Shanahan, and Chris Pharo, a newsdesk executive.