Rupert Murdoch heads for 'The Sun' crisis meeting

Rupert Murdoch is expected to reassure staff in the nervous newsroom at The Sun today that the paper will not be closed or sold following the arrest of various senior journalists over alleged corrupt payments.

The boss of News Corporation flew into Luton airport last night and is expected to visit the headquarters of News International, the publisher of The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times, later today for what was described by one source as "five star crisis talks".



The newspaper has been rocked by the arrest of nine current and former staff this month as part of a police investigation into alleged bribery of public officials.

The probe is said to focus on "suspected criminality over a sustained period of time" at Britain's biggest-selling tabloid paper, apparently involving tens of thousands of pounds.

There has been anger among some staff that the arrests - which included the paper's deputy editor, picture editor and chief reporter - came after information was handed over by an independent committee, the Management Standards Committee (MSC), which was set up by News Corp to clean up the mess after the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World.

All the journalists arrested have bailed and none has been charged.

However, staff have alleged that they are victims of a "witch-hunt" and there has been suggestion that News Corp is looking to make sacrifices at the paper in order to protect its global brand.

Trevor Kavanagh, the associate editor of The Sun, criticised the actions of the MSC and the Metropolitan Police's handling of the arrests, accusing authorities of treating journalists like a "criminal gang".

"There is unease about the way some of the best journalists in Fleet Street have ended up being arrested on evidence which the MSC has handed to the police," he said in a leader in The Sun on Monday.

Later, it emerged that several senior journalists at The Sun are looking to hire leading lawyer Geoffrey Robertson to mount a human rights challenge to the MSC. Robertson said in a column in The Times this week that journalists must fight for their human rights and protect their sources.

News International executive chairman James Murdoch said last year that the company would not rule out closing The Sun if widespread "wrongdoing" was uncovered. But it is thought that his father will look to reassure staff about the paper's future, and clarify the work of the MSC.

The MSC has itself defended its actions, insisting that all material derived from "lawful" journalistic practices was being redacted before handing over to the authorities to protect the sources involved.

But a source close to the investigation told The Daily Telegraph: "This is not about sources or expenses, this is an investigation into serious suspected criminality over a sustained period.

"It involves regular cash payments totalling tens of thousands of pounds a year for several years to public officials, some of whom were effectively on retainers to provide information. In totality it involves a six-figure sum."