New allegations besiege Murdoch media empire

CASSANDRA VINOGRAD

RAPHAEL G. SATTER

Asso­ci­ated Press

LONDON — Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was besieged Mon­day by accu­sa­tions that two more of his British news­pa­pers engaged in hack­ing, decep­tion and pri­vacy vio­la­tions that included access­ing for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown’s bank account infor­ma­tion and steal­ing the med­ical records of his seri­ously ill baby son.

His reporters were also accused of pay­ing Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s body­guards for secret infor­ma­tion about the monarch, poten­tially jeop­ar­diz­ing her safety.

If proven, the charges by rival news­pa­pers would dra­mat­i­cally increase the pres­sure on top Mur­doch exec­u­tives so far largely insu­lated from the scandal.

The pub­lic out­rage began a week ago over wrong­do­ing at the Murdoch-owned best-selling tabloid News of the World. It has since dis­rupted the media titan’s plans to take over highly prof­itable satel­lite broad­caster British Sky Broad­cast­ing and slashed bil­lions off the value of his global con­glom­er­ate News Corp.

In Britain, the scan­dal has cast a harsh light on the unpar­al­leled polit­i­cal influ­ence of Murdoch’s col­lec­tion of news­pa­pers and is tak­ing an increas­ing toll on Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron. The con­ser­v­a­tive leader’s for­mer com­mu­ni­ca­tions chief, Andy Coul­son, was arrested last week in con­nec­tion with alleged pay­offs to police when he was edi­tor of News of the World.

With polit­i­cal pres­sure ris­ing, a final deci­sion on the $12 bil­lion (7.5 bil­lion pound) BSKyB takeover was delayed after Mur­doch with­drew a promise to spin off news chan­nel Sky News. It was seen as a tac­ti­cal move that forced the British gov­ern­ment to refer the bid to author­i­ties charged with enforc­ing anti-monopoly laws, delay­ing any deci­sion for months.

Ana­lysts said Murdoch’s move amounts to a favor for Cameron, spar­ing the prime min­is­ter the pos­si­bil­ity of an embar­rass­ing defeat in the House of Commons.

The takeover will be spared scrutiny dur­ing a period of once-unimaginable pub­lic crit­i­cism of Murdoch’s British oper­a­tion, News Inter­na­tional, fueled by a relent­less stream of new alle­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing at its properties.

London’s Evening Stan­dard news­pa­per reported that cor­rupt royal pro­tec­tion offi­cers sold per­sonal details about Queen Eliz­a­beth II — includ­ing phone num­bers and tips about her move­ments and staff — to jour­nal­ists work­ing for the Mur­doch tabloid News of the World, rais­ing ques­tions over a breach in national security.

The scan­dal spread beyond the now-defunct tabloid, with British media report­ing Mon­day that Brown was one of thou­sands whose pri­vacy was breached by News Inter­na­tional papers, say­ing that his per­sonal details — includ­ing his bank account and his son’s med­ical records — had been stolen by peo­ple work­ing for the Sun and the Sun­day Times. None of the media cited sources.

The Guardian, which set off the scan­dal last week with a report that the News of the World had hacked the phone of a miss­ing 13-year-old girl who was later found mur­dered, said on its web­site that the Sun had ille­gally obtained details from the med­ical records of Brown’s 4-year-old son Fraser, who has cys­tic fibrosis.

The Sun broke the story of Fraser’s ill­ness soon after he was born in 2006.

The Guardian reported that News Inter­na­tional chief exec­u­tive Rebekah Brooks, then edi­tor of the Sun, con­tacted the Browns before pub­li­ca­tion to say that the paper had details from Fraser’s med­ical file. The Browns were extremely dis­tressed by the story, friends told the Guardian.

The Guardian said Brown was tar­geted over a more than 10-year period while he served as chan­cel­lor of the exche­quer and prime min­is­ter, and that some of his finan­cial infor­ma­tion was obtained by hack­ing into his accountant’s com­put­ers. It said Scot­land Yard con­tacted Brown and his wife, Sarah, to tell them their details had been found in evi­dence col­lected by the spe­cial inquiry into phone hack­ing at the News of the World.

Brooks, who also edited the News of the World in 2002 when jour­nal­ists there allegedly hacked mur­der vic­tim Milly Dowler’s cell phone, has since been pro­moted to head of News Inter­na­tional, News Corp.’s U.K. news­pa­per division.

Mur­doch has pub­licly stood by her even while clos­ing down News of the World in response to the alle­ga­tions. Brooks has denied knowl­edge of any wrongdoing.

Media watch­ers accuse Mur­doch of offer­ing up the more than 200 News of the World jour­nal­ists as a sac­ri­fice to save Brooks.

A spokes­woman for Brown said Mon­day that the for­mer prime min­is­ter was shocked by the alleged “crim­i­nal­ity and the uneth­i­cal means by which per­sonal details have been obtained” about his family.

His wife, Sarah, tweeted that the infor­ma­tion was very per­sonal and it was “really hurt­ful if all true.”

News Inter­na­tional spokes­woman Daisy Dun­lop said the com­pany had taken note of the accu­sa­tions and that in order to inves­ti­gate the com­pany asks “that all infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing these alle­ga­tions is pro­vided to us.”

Other news­pa­pers reported that Brown’s bank account was bro­ken into by a con man act­ing for Murdoch’s Sun­day Times.

The Evening Stan­dard report said that News Corp. exec­u­tives dis­cov­ered a series of e-mails indi­cat­ing that Mur­doch employ­ees made pay­ments to mem­bers of Scot­land Yard’s royal and diplo­matic pro­tec­tion squad in return for details about the queen and her entourage.

The Evening Stan­dard cited uniden­ti­fied “sources” with­out say­ing how they would be in a posi­tion to know. Buck­ing­ham Palace declined com­ment on the reports.

“The events of last week shocked the nation,” Cul­ture Sec­re­tary Jeremy Hunt told law­mak­ers Mon­day. He said Britain’s proud press tra­di­tion had been “shaken by the rev­e­la­tion of what we now know to have hap­pened at the News of The World.”

The 80-year-old Mur­doch arrived in the U.K. on Sun­day to take charge of the widen­ing crisis.

Legal experts said Mon­day it is pos­si­ble Murdoch’s U.S. com­pa­nies might face legal actions because of the shady prac­tices at the News of the World, his now defunct British tabloid. In the U.S., Mur­doch owns Fox News, The Wall Street Jour­nal and the New York Post, among other holdings.

They said Murdoch’s News Corp. might be liable to crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion under the 1977 Cor­rupt For­eign Prac­tices Act, a broad act designed to pros­e­cute exec­u­tives who bribe for­eign offi­cials in exchange for large contracts.

A group of News Corp. share­hold­ers already have sued the com­pany over the phone-hacking scan­dal, accus­ing News Corp. of large-scale gov­er­nance fail­ures. The law­suit was filed late Fri­day in Delaware Chancery Court by share­hold­ers led by Amal­ga­mated Bank, and sev­eral munic­i­pal and union pen­sion funds joined in.

The share­hold­ers own less than 1 per­cent of News Corp.’s stock com­bined. The law­suit is part of an amended com­plaint. The share­hold­ers are also chal­leng­ing News Corp.’s acqui­si­tion of Shine Group Ltd., founded by Murdoch’s daugh­ter. News Corp. didn’t imme­di­ately return mes­sages for com­ment on the lawsuit.

Posted by AP News on Jul 11 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.