Rupert Murdoch was expected to fly into London to tackle a phone-hacking crisis while journalists prepared the last edition of a newspaper they say he is sacrificing to safeguard his plans to expand his media business.
The planned visit of the News Corp chief executive coincided with calls on Prime Minister David Cameron to speed up an inquiry into the scandal, which could jeopardise Murdoch’s proposed takeover of a British broadcaster and has raised questions about relations between media and politicians.
News Corp, whose shares have fallen over the scandal, declined to comment on 80-year-old Murdoch’s agenda.
A spokeswoman for News International, its British media arm, denied allegations an executive might have destroyed evidence relevant to a police inquiry into the allegations its reporters had hacked into the telephones of relatives of troops killed in action and a string of celebrities several years ago.
News International chief Rebekah Brooks indicated more revelations may emerge in comments to News of the World staff on Friday, a day after she told them the 168-year-old best-selling newspaper had become “toxic” and would be shut. “Eventually it will come out why things went wrong and who is responsible. That will be another very difficult moment in this company’s history,” she said on Friday, according to a recording carried by Sky News.
Murdoch has brushed off calls for Brooks to resign due to her editorship of News of the World during some of the alleged hacking incidents. She denies knowledge of the practice.
Cameron, a friend and neighbour of Brooks, joined calls for her to step down on Friday at a news conference at which he admitted politicians had been in thrall to media for years.
The Guardian newspaper reported on its website that police were investigating evidence a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct investigations.
The News International spokeswoman said the allegation was “rubbish”. “We are cooperating actively with police and have not destroyed evidence.”
Journalists working on Sunday’s last edition of the News of the World were angered by the loss of their jobs, saying they had been made scapegoats to protect NewsCorp’s expansion in television.
“There are 280 journalists there who have absolutely nothing to do with the things that may have gone on many, many years in the past,” chief subeditor Alan Edwards told the British Broadcasting Corporation.
