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Chris Helgren / Reuters
An advertisement for The Sun newspaper is seen on a billboard outside News International's Wapping headquarters in London, Jan. 28
LONDON -- British police on Saturday arrested five senior members of staff at News Corporation's flagship newspaper The Sun, the company said, as part of investigations into alleged payments to police by journalists for information.
The payments investigation, dubbed Operation Elveden, is part of a wider probe into illegal news gathering practices that have rocked Britain's political, media and police establishments and last year prompted the closure of News Corp.'s Sunday paper, The News of the World.
"I'm as shocked as anyone by today's arrests but am determined to lead The Sun through these difficult times. I have a brilliant staff and we have a duty to serve our readers and will continue to do that. Our focus is on putting out Monday's newspaper," Sun editor Dominic Mohan said in a statement.
A former News of the World executive, who requested anonymity, said The Sun's current deputy editor Geoff Webster, picture editor John Edwards and chief reporter John Kay were among those arrested Saturday. Sky News and other British media reported that chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker and reporter John Sturgis were also being questioned. News Corp. would not publicly confirm the identities of those detained.
A 39-year-old female employee at Britain's defense ministry, a 36-year-old male member of the armed forces and a 39-year-old serving police officer with Surrey Police were also arrested in an early morning raid, police said.
The Ministry of Defense declined to comment.
The latest arrests at The Sun, Britain's best-selling daily newspaper, come after the arrest of four current and former staff at the newspaper last month, raising questions about the publication's viability.
Saturday's arrests were the result of information from News Corp.'s Management and Standards Committee (MSC), a fact-finding group the firm set up in a bid to rescue its ravaged reputation.
"The MSC provided the information to the Elveden investigation which led to today's arrests ... News Corporation remains committed to ensuring that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past will not be repeated," New Corp said in a statement.
The MSC's work could lead to further damaging revelations about journalists bribing police that could prompt calls for the Sun's demise.
The once hugely popular News of the World was closed last year by Murdoch after accusations that its reporters hacked the mobile phone messages of celebrities and victims of crime caused a public outcry.
Murdoch to quit newspapers?
"This is huge. It will raise some very serious questions about the viability of The Sun .... You then start to ask questions about the extent to which News Corp and Murdoch in particular, may want to start getting out of newspapers all together," said Steven Barnett, professor of communications at Westminster University, London.
Barnett said Saturday's arrests were particularly damaging because they included current staff and were not related to historical actions by former employees, and also because they come after arrests and office raids at The Sun last month.
Murdoch also owns The Times broadsheet newspaper, which this year admitted that one of its former reporters had hacked a phone, and the Wall Street Journal U.S. financial newspaper.
Meanwhile, U.S. authorities are stepping up investigations, including an FBI criminal inquiry, into possible violations by Murdoch media employees of a U.S. law banning corrupt payments to foreign officials such as police, law enforcement and corporate sources.
Police said 40 people had been arrested in connection with three police investigations into illegal news gathering practices, but that no one had yet been charged.
Allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World prompted Britain's parliament to summon Murdoch and his executive son James to explain themselves last year.
Many inside and outside parliament have long accused Murdoch of wielding too much political influence through his newspapers.
The scandal's most high profile scalps so far include two top police officials, who resigned over the handling of initial investigations into media malpractice; Rebekah Brooks, a former chief executive of Murdoch's London papers; and Andy Coulson, a former Murdoch editor who became Prime Minister David Cameron's media adviser.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story.
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Leave a Comment:
we all have to face one fact! each party will lie and deceive to achieve their agenda!!!!!
oh thats right we use a poor man like joe the plumber as a decoy ..and get voted in ..and take away our benefits is that right..yea that would sum up the tea party right right.and fox news got everyone of the tea trash in office
dirp101: Time to arrest Murdoch, no bail. Let him sit in "gaol" until trial, maybe have Hannity, O'Reilly and a few of the others on Fox "news" as bunk buddies. Funny, no mention at all of the arrests on Fox.com.... gee, I guess they couldn't come up with a "fair and balanced" way to spin this yet.
Hannity, O'Reilly, and others are opinion shows, as is Maddow, Maher and others. I have no problem with any opinion show as we have freedom of speech in our country. Jeff Immelt was just as quilty when GE owned NBC and he was asking NBC to tone down the rethoric and go easy on Obama.
Australian Murdoch has had a reputation for lies and lack of ethics. Does anyone seem surprised by this? The entire FOX regime is a mass of lies and falsehoods and a look at the line-up of their 'stars' reveals a rather large gaggle of professional distortion experts from O'Reilly to Beck and beyond. Even their entertainment was known as 'if it's sleazy it's on FOX'. THey've tried lately to legitimize themselves but once the die is cast......
You gotta love fox throwing out the impeach Obama nonsense and for what reasons ....
Gangsta Girl Pelosi why oh why on earth did you listen to fox..
FOX Wants Dems to Promise Not to Impeach Bush After Win
Democrats Must End Talk of Bush Impeachment
By Martin Frost
Monday, May 22, 2006
Now that everyone recognizes what I first said last September – that Democrats have a real chance of taking back control of the U.S. House of Representatives this Fall – it’s time for Democrats to start acting like winners.
Step one would be for the Democratic leadership to definitively put to rest any loose talk of impeaching President Bush. They should say in one and two syllable words that impeachment will not happen once they are in the majority and thus take away a potential rallying cry for the beleaguered Republicans.
I know there are people on the left who would like to see Bush impeached but they do harm to the Democratic Party by raising this as a possibility and Democratic leaders should shut them up once and for all.
This is not very complicated. We don’t impeach presidents for incompetence…only for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The Bush administration is clearly one of the most incompetent in recent times-- if not in our entire 200 year plus history. If we were a parliamentary system, Congress would have long ago passed a vote of “no confidence” and there would be new national elections.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196549,00.html
You definitely forgot about the Carter administration! It has my vote for the worst in recent history!
To..Alzie"""
Nope that be gw..nixon / ford ...not to mention hoover
Sorry, I still think Carter was the least effective president in recent history. Loss of jobs, double digit inflation, weak foreign policy, and a failure to show leadership. He has been more effective with some of his causes (Habitat for Humanity) since leaving office. I also wish he would take a lesson from GW and show restraint by not always commenting about current presidential policies.
To..Alzie"""
If you remember Carter you must remember what he inherited...you remember the October Surprise..Carter is a great humanitarian ...much to his fault..
Gerald Ford's economic legacy
Former president was forced to deal with massive inflation and unemployment during his term.
By Christian Zappone, CNNMoney.com staff writer
December 28 2006:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gerald Ford's presidential term was as much marked by the economic forces of inflation as it was by the political fortunes of the time.
Ford, who was sworn in as president on Aug. 9, 1974, after the resignation of Richard Nixon, faced inflation that was already surging at a 10.9 percent annual rate in that month. It was thrust into overdrive by the OPEC oil embargo of 1974 and the elimination of wage/price controls instituted in the Nixon administration
President Ford, who inherited many of the nation's economic problems from the previous administration, was defeated in the following presidential election.
Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president in 1977.
Inflation remained a problem throughout the 1970s, finally peaking at an annual rate of 13.5 percent in 1980.
It wasn't until the early 1980s that inflation was brought fully under control.
Many credit the Federal Reserve, led by Carter-appointed chairman Paul Volcker with his "tough monetary policy," for that.
Volcker limited the growth of the money supply, which resulted in a recession and high lending rates.
Volcker "wrung inflationary psychology out of the economy," said Ratkus, who explained that until then people expected a certain amount of inflation in prices.
The expectation of inflation set the stage for sharp rises in costs and "helped create a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts," said Ratkus.
Since then interest rates and inflation have remained relatively low
.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/27/news/newsmakers/gerald_ford/index.htm?postversion=2006122710
The Democratic Party rule book:
1. Always blame the previous admisitration if your policies are not working.
2. See rule number 1.
To Alzie ""
Where am I wrong ...how bout the party of personal responsibility take some on...instead of trying to rewrite history ..how bout learning from it ...
Here are some differing perspectives:
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2000/0121politics_hess.aspx
http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Kennedy-Bush/Jimmy-Carter-Domestic-affairs.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/12/13/cstillwell.DTL&ao=all
To..Alzie""
That's what you call it ..
Oh Yeah, "Cuff'em Danno"
Don't forget last week FOX NEWS was voted the best news 10 years in a row.
from whom..themselves
To..steve"""
So is the Bachelor ...
never seen MSNBC be the top! maybe in lies!!!
like what this?
Were any of them named Murdoch? No? Where's the justice?
All media news is full of #%&@
what you don't like truth..oh that's right your a tea party Christian..who like a news station calling Obama a secret Muslim..he is attacking the Christians....God says thou shalt not give false statement against they neighbor..but obama is not your a neighbor that's OK then huh
Gives you a little glimpse of why the right preaches their hatred of socialism to such an extreme. Maybe England, with a little socialism mixed into their capitalism, cannot be sufficiently bought off by the Murdoch's to prevent an action like this. Can you imagine if this type of investigation happened here in the U.S.? I can hear them screaming about the socialist left limiting the honest reporting of News Corp., trying to take away their Constitutional right to free speech.
Steve-2816685
yes! that is the truth! that's why democrats will never know the truth because they believe every thing a lib news media like MSNBC tells them. they don't have the brains to search the truth out!!!
what what ..I need to see Obama birth certificate..is that it fox the fair and unbalance channel..and you say look for truth ...hahahaha
when MSNBC make mistakes about facts they correct them. When Fox New makes a mistake on fact. They repeat the lie over and over and over until their low informational listeners think it is fact.
yes indeed..slur
To.,.steve2244879.."""
Heh heh ..who told you that...
John in NW PA
and the left would do the same thing! don't be stupid JOHN
steve when has a news person been arrested..oh that's Right when one walks in a tea party meeting..that's it
So you can't make an intelligent comment in response to mine, so you call me stupid. You are a freakin' genius Steve.
Why stop there. Arrest the pigs and everyone else who took the bribes.
elvis payne
you need to know the difference between news and someones opinion. kinda like Rachel Madow and Bill Oriely
bill holds it to a minum now..because he knows.. we know whats up with his crap..of no spin.oh and yes i do know its an opinion..but not the fox viewers
What idiot wrote prove they don't lie? You can't prove this type of negative. There is a sea monster living in Lake Irie, prove there isn't one. What are you going to do, empty the lake?
yea kind a like Rachel. and the other one that use to be on before her. cant remember his name. the one that was fired from MSNBC
thats ok i watch him on current tv..both of them.no all of them
Lawrence Grossman
NOW THATS FUNNY
what you don't like a person smarter than you is that it?
Ya gotta remember since fox's inception in 1996 they have waged a war on every other news source as being biased ..not just biased but liberally biased..all day everyday 24/7....and now you see the kool aid drinking sheeple parrot their fox mantra...Abc..NBC ..CBS..PBS..MSNBC..CNN ..NYT..WP...and every other news sousce is biased ...except of course fox....gotta love that nonsense...
thats the truth they got dan rather fired. that hour of news i waited ever time growing up watching him
Another thing fox made their name on Clinton's zipper they should be paying him royalties
hahahah they should
Of course FOX has bias, but the others do to. (Talking about the news shows, not the opinion shows.) It's not always in what they are reporting on, but many times what they choose NOT to report. For example, when Harry Reid commented that "today was a good day in America, we only lost 30,000 jobs this month", or when Obama stated that he now visited 57 states and only had two more to go. The major networks ignored these comments as not news worthy. If GW had made either of these comments, they would have been the lead story on NBC, CBS, and ABC. Pick any news day and watch the news from a liberal biased outlet and a conservative biased outlet and maybe you will get the full news of the day!
To..Alzie"""
Want a cracker...
You gotta go over to Amazon they got books of Bushisims ...what a hoot ...
I don't have my blinders on... I've read the Bushsims and find them hilarious too. All I'm saying is that you won't see the bias unless you open your eyes and ears. Unfortunately, it's there!
To..Alzie""
Wasn't like that before fox news came along ...but now ..you betcha..thank you fox
its amazing that there is so many lib news agency's out there and then theirs fox news against all of them but still their still #1
hey Einstein put them all together..and then see..and oh they are not the only on..you have your local news here in Texas..helping out with there crap..and radio
Amunaka
there you said! you have listed every lib news that all of them attack fox news every day 24/7. that's 7 against 1 and there still number 1
To..steve"""
Do you see the irony in what you say...and it's people like you they target ...
elvis. Dan rather was busted! cant deny that.
yes...but fox just keep going after him like a fat kid on a cup cake...why dont they do the same like with newt..
It is not ok to yell fire in a crowded theater, but it is ok to lie and distort facts on the public airwaves. So much so that they cause people to go totally insane. What's the difference? A lie in the first instance causes public harm,just as Fox News causes public harm by making people less intelligent.
Why not investigate NBC,CBS,ABC etc. The real NON-journalists go along with impunity, as long as they spew proper propaganda and don't rock the boat.
are they wire-tapping?..you dont have to give yourself a check
TO..mont""
""The real NON-journalists"""
Who told you that ...let me guess
Hey Amunaka;
Yo "google that name and you end up with a whole bunch of BIASED leftwinger websites busiky and falsely trying to smear Fox News. Oh WOW! get source for finding the truh, hnesty and fair reporting. Typical of you leftwing bagger liars and trolls.
Leave the liberal koolade alone.
To..English ""'
But you know every other news source is biased...fox told you ...so your point is mute
oh you dont like truth either..how is the word left wing a lie..please tell us the truth..if you can
I wonder why Canada kept fox news out of their country?
Google that?
Not true, just spent several months on business in London Ontario and was able to watch FOX news if I chose too.