Rupert Murdoch on Friday visited the offices of his British tabloid The Sun amid journalists’ anger following the arrests of 10 current and former staff over allegations of bribing public officials. Murdoch swept into the headquarters of his British newspaper division in Wapping, east London, in a chauffeur-driven Range Rover to take charge of the latest crisis in his media empire. The 80-year-old tycoon flew in to Britain on a private jet late Thursday, seven months after he took the swift decision to shut down The Sun’s sister paper, the News of the World, amid a scandal over phone-hacking. Despite fears that Murdoch could also close The Sun to ‘protect the brand’ of his US-based News Corporation empire, he is expected to seek to reassure an angry newsroom that he is committed to publishing the tabloid. The Sun sells 2.5 million copies a day, making it the biggest-selling title in a crowded British newspaper market. Police arrested five journalists last weekend as well as a Ministry of Defence official, a member of the armed forces and a policeman over allegations that reporters paid officials for information. Four current and former Sun employees were also arrested in January, and another in November. Journalists at the paper are furious at the role of News Corp. in the arrests, which were sparked by information passed to police by a committee set up by the company in response to the phone-hacking furore. The Management and Standards Committee (MSC), based at the Wapping headquarters, has pored over thousands of emails and documents. Tom Mockridge, the chief executive of Murdoch’s British newspaper division, News International, has told staff that the tycoon had personally reassured him about his “total commitment to continue to own and publish The Sun”. However, a former editor of another of Murdoch’s British papers, The Sunday Times, warned that his ex-boss would do “whatever it takes” to protect the reputation of his empire in the face of concerns from US investors. “At the moment, it looks like he’s prepared to sacrifice the journalists and journalism in London to do whatever it takes to be seen to be cleaning up his act so that it will play better in the US,” Andrew Neil told CNN. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said Sun employees had been in contact to discuss taking legal action against the paper’s owners. Meanwhile, Murdoch said his News International company would launch a Sunday edition of The Sun tabloid in Britain, in an email to staff.
