Murdoch Payoff Scandal: ‘It’s How Newspapers Work’

A few weeks ago the UK newspaper the Guardian broke the news that Rupert Murdoch‘s newspaper had been quietly settling cases out of court — cases which would have revealed that the journos working for his papers had to be using “criminal methods” such as wire-tapping and hacking into emails, to get stories. Rupert denied any knowledge of any wrongdoing. Now, it looks like the sins of the son may soon be visited upon the father.

The New York Times is reporting that the editor of the London tabloid News of the World told a committee investigating the matter that Murdoch’s son James Murdoch had approved a “a $1.1 million payment to settle phone-tapping allegations against the paper.”

The case — in which the payment was made to Gordon Taylor, the head of the Professional Footballers’ Association — was settled at a 2008 meeting among James Murdoch; Colin Myler, the editor of News of the World; and Tom Crone, a company lawyer, Mr. Myler told a committee of the House of Commons, Bloomberg News reported.

“It was an agreed collective decision,” Mr. Myler told the committee, according to Bloomberg. “It’s how newspapers work.”

Or that’s how they work in the UK apparently, one imagines if a paper here had an extra $1.1 million kicking around the people they’d be most interested in paying to keep quiet would be the aggregators and/or Craig Newmark.

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