Rupert Murdoch‘s U.K. tabloid News of the World, and its parent company News Group Newspapers (also owned by Murdoch), are under scrutiny after The Guardian reported that the group paid 1 million pounds (1.6 million dollars) in out-of-court settlements to “settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of [Murdoch’s] journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.”
The Guardian claims that News of the World editors and reporters paid private investigators to hack into over 2,000 to 3,000 phones of politicians, celebrities, and other public figures.
News of the World faced a similar accusation in the past, but at the time claimed it was a small, isolated incident:
The suppressed legal cases are linked to the jailing in January 2007 of a News of the World reporter, Clive Goodman, for hacking into the mobile phones of three royal staff, an offense under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. At the time, News International said it knew of no other journalist who was involved in hacking phones and that Goodman had acted without their knowledge.
U.K. Prime Minister Gordan Brown said that the questions raised by The Guardian‘s allegations are “very serious,” and former deputy PM John Prescott is calling for “inquiries to be reopened into allegations of widespread mobile phone hacking by the News of the World.” Prescott’s phone is believed to be one of the many that were hacked.
As for Murdoch, according to the AP he “refused to comment: ‘I’m not talking about that issue at all today. Sorry,’ he told FOX Business Network at a media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.”
Perhaps his reason for not commenting is that Murdoch is too busy thinking about purchasing twitter… but then again, maybe not. Either way FOX Business didn’t press Murdoch on the News of the World scandal, which makes sense seeing as he owns the network.