Memo Rupert Murdoch: do you really know what goes on in your empire?

On July 8, as the News of the World phone-tap scandal broke, Murdoch assured us that he wasn’t aware of any payments made to settle legal cases that might have linked the company’s newspaper reporters to involvement in criminal activity.

“If that had happened, I would know about it,” Murdoch said in an interview at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

But in London overnight, at a parliamentary inquiry into the claims by The Guardian of secret payments by the News of the World to people whose phones were “hacked” by a private detective employed by the News Ltd paper, it was claimed that Rupert’s son and anointed heir James was aware of the payments.

During the three-hour session, it also emerged that James Murdoch, News International’s executive chairman, was “appraised” of the decision to pay £700,000 in damages and legal costs for a breach of privacy, the Guardian and Bloomberg reported.

James Murdoch, the son of News Corp Chairman, Rupert Murdoch, agreed to a 700,000 pound ($1.1 million) payment to a victim of phone-tapping by the News of the World, the editor of the company’s newspaper said.

www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/22/james-murdo...hackergate-payments/