Executive Editor to be Charged with Bribery, while Rupert's son James remains "free as a lark."  

[ by Howard Haykin ]

The Sun tabloid published by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., once again is darkening the skies over London.  Fergus Shanahan, a 24-year-veteran of the Sun, the current executive editor at News Corp.'s Sun tabloid will be charged with authorizing bribes to public officials.  The allegations were uncovered as part of a wider probe into wrongdoing at the company’s U.K. newspapers. 

News Corp. (NWSA) publications in the U.K. have been at the center of investigations into phone hacking and bribery since revelations in 2011 that the company’s News of the World tabloid illegally accessed messages on the mobile phone of a murdered school girl. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch closed the newspaper in response to the scandal.

The Sun is Britain’s best-selling daily newspaper and the main focus of the bribery probe, while the now defunct News of the World is at the heart of the phone-hacking scandal. Shanahan is the 13th person charged as part of the bribery probe, including Sun journalists, police officers and prison guards.

“We will be offering Fergus every support as he goes through the legal process and we will not prejudge the outcome.  I’m grateful to everyone on the Sun for their continued professionalism, delivering a world-class paper in these testing times.”  -- Mike Darcey, CEO of News Corp.’s News Int'l unit, expressed in a memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

Findings and Allegations.    As executive editor, Shanahan, 58, was in charge of 644 editorial employees on the Sun’s staff.  It is said that he authorized a journalist to make 2 payments totaling 7,000 pounds ($10,600) to a public official in exchange for information between 2006 and 2007, the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.

Others Implicated in the Investigation.   The Sun’s crime editor, Mike Sullivan, was cleared of any wrongdoing on 4/2 by U.K. prosecutors in relation to the investigation. Sullivan and Shanahan were arrested on the same day in January 2012 as part of Operation Elveden, the police name for the bribery probe.  Four former law enforcement officers have been sentenced to as much as 2 years in prison for giving information to News Corp. U.K. journalists in exchange for bribes.  Rebekah Brooks, former CEO of News Corp.’s U.K. unit and a past editor of both the Sun and the News of the World, has been charged with phone hacking and bribery.

Trinity Mirror Plc (TNI)’s Sunday Mirror was dragged into the U.K. phone-hacking scandal in March as police arrested 4 journalists linked to the newspaper, opening a new front in the investigation.

[ C-I Note:   IT’S QUITE MIND-BOGGLING – IF NOT A FEAT OF MAGIC – THAT RUPERT MURDOCH HAS, UP UNTIL NOW, SHIELDED SON JAMES FROM CRIMINAL PROSECUTION, WHILE SEEMINGLY EVERY OTHER TOP EXECUTIVE WITH TIES TO THE U.K.’S RAG NEWSPAPER - ‘THE SUN’.  JAMES WAS CHAIRMAN AND SIGNED OFF ON SOME OF THE NEWSPAPER’S MOST EGREGIOUS INVASIONS OF PRIVACY AND ENDORSED RECORD SETTLEMENT CHECKS TO THE VICTIMS. 

IT WAS A STROKE OF GENIUS THAT RUPERT SPLIT OFF THE NEWSPAPER DIVISION FROM THE REST OF THE NEWS CORP. BUSINESSES – NOT ONLY HAS THE NEWSPAPER DIVISION BEEN LOSING REVENUES, BUT IT’S PILING UP ENORMOUS LEGAL FEES RELATED TO THE NUMEROUS BRIBERY AND PRIVACY  LAWSUITS. 

SECOND, THE SEPARATION DISTANCES THE TELEVISION (FOX) DIVISION AND OTHER SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES FROM THE REGULATORY SANCTIONS AND LAWSUITS THAT CONTINUE TO WEIGH HEAVILY ON THE NEWS DIVISION’S BOTTOM LINE AND REPUTATION.]

For further details, go to;   [ Bloomberg, 4/18/13 ].

The writer may be contacted at:   Howard@Compliance-Insights.com.