SENIOR NEWS International executives must be recalled to appear before MPs following the arrest of five journalists from the Sunin early morning raids on suspicion of paying police for information, a leading Labour MP has demanded.
The latest arrests left staff at the newspaper reeling, but prompted an immediate announcement by a senior company executive – on the orders of Rupert Murdoch – that the newspaper will not be closed, as happened last year to the News of the World.
The arrests on Saturday came after News Corporation’s own management and standards committee, which is investigating the issue, handed reams of information over to Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan Police’s inquiry into improper payments to police and other public officials.
The Metropolitan Special Constabulary’s action led to comments from the National Union of Journalists’ general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, who said journalists at the tabloid are “reeling at seeing five more of their colleagues thrown to the wolves”.
Declaring the police investigation a “witch-hunt”, Ms Stanistreet said: “Once again Rupert Murdoch is trying to pin the blame on individual journalists hoping that a few scalps will salvage his corporate reputation.”
However, the British secretary of state for culture, Jeremy Hunt, paid tribute to the News International internal inquiry, saying it is “greatly to their credit” that the company is co-operating even if he wished that it had begun to do so “a bit earlier”.
Labour MP Tom Watson, one of the few MPs to have led the charge against the Murdoch-controlled empire in Britain, said top company executives should be called back to give more evidence to the Commons’ culture, media and sport inquiry.
“The company collaborated with the police. They have given evidence to the police that has led to some of these arrests,” he said, adding that the new information cast doubt on executives’ past evidence that no bribes were paid.
Operation Elveden runs alongside Scotland Yard's Operation Weeting, which was set up in the wake of the allegations News of the Worldjournalists had hacked mobile phone messages of murder victim Milly Dowler.
Mr Murdoch (81) is expected to fly to London later this week for urgent meetings with local executives following the arrests of the Sun's deputy editor, Geoff Webster, picture editor John Edwards, chief reporter John Kay, chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker, and John Sturgis, who is a news editor. All are having their legal fees paid by News International.
A 39-year-old serving Surrey Police officer, a 39-year-old ministry of defence employee and a 36-year-old member of the armed forces were also arrested at their homes on suspicion of corruption, misconduct in a public office and conspiracy in relation to both. All have been released on bail.
Despite calls led by Mr Watson that Mr Murdoch is no longer fit to be the major controlling influence on BSkyB in the UK, Mr Hunt said Mr Murdoch’s decisions 20 years ago had “massively increased” choice for British viewers.
New legislation to govern press regulation will be ready by 2015, he believed, though he said he did not favour state control of any kind.
However, the industry will have to show that it is prepared properly to deal with poor conduct.
A new regulatory system could help media organisations to “deal with the challenge of the internet”, he said.
“If we can do that, and if Britain is an exciting place for that model, then, hopefully, investors from all over the world will say: well actually, we want to be part of that story,”Mr Hunt said.