Five senior Sun newspaper employees were arrested this morning over the scandal of payments to police for information. As part of the ongoing police investigation Operation Elveden, which began after the News of the World phone-hacking scandal saw the Murdoch Sunday paper close, a number of high profile journalists were arrested in a series of early morning raids, along with senior police officers and Ministry of Defence employees and a member of the armed forces.
All five were arrested on suspicion of corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 – aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office and conspiracy accroding to a police statement, which adding ‘It relates to suspected payments to police officers and public officials’.
The arrests come two weeks after four former and current Sun journalists and a serving Metropolitan police officer were arrested over alleged illegal police payments.
It’s understood the paper itself is in jeopardy and Murdoch attempted to distance himself further from his UK employees and operation with a statement: “News Corporation remains committed to ensuring that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past will not be repeated and last summer authorised the MSC to co-operate with the relevant authorities”.
The NUJ on the other hand are less than impressed with Murdoch’s stance stating: “Journalists are reeling at seeing five more of their colleagues thrown to the wolves in what many sense to be a 
witch-hunt. They are furious at what they see as a monumental betrayal on the part of News International.”
It is also understood the scandal so far has cost the company $200 million in legal fees and compensation pay outs to people who had their phone illegally hacked by Murdoch’s papers.
http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/2012/02/11/the-sun-goes-down-on-murdoch/
The Free 