You're reading: Rupert Murdoch to address UK staff amid crisis

LONDON (AP) — News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch arrived at the offices of his British newspapers Friday for talks with staff amid continued police inquiries into alleged misconduct and simmering dissent among the company's rank and file.

Murdoch, who flew into Britain late Thursday on a private jet, was scheduled to tour the newsroom of his scandal-hit tabloid The Sun and hold meetings at the London complex that also houses his broadsheet titles The Times and The Sunday Times, according to a person familiar with his movements who requested anonymity to discuss the mogul’s plans.

The visit follows the arrest Saturday of five senior staff at The Sun in an inquiry into the alleged payment of bribes to police and defense officials. A total of 10 current and ex-staff at The Sun — Britain’s biggest selling newspaper — have been questioned over the allegations. None has so far been charged.

Police also are continuing inquiries into alleged phone and email hacking and have defended the wide scope of their investigations, saying the work is justified by "the seriousness of the allegations currently under investigation and the significant number of victims."

In July, Murdoch shuttered his News of The World tabloid amid public fury as the extent of its phone hacking of celebrities, public figures and crime victims was exposed.

However, in his address at The Sun, he was expected to repeat an assurance made to executives last weekend that he had no plans to close down the newspaper he acquired in 1969.

Some staff at News International, the British arm of News Corp., have expressed alarm after both the company and police confirmed the latest arrests came after executives supplied information to detectives, and have said they are worried that their confidential sources have been compromised.

After long insisting wrongdoing had been confined to a single, previously jailed reporter, News Corp. appointed a management and standards committee to investigate the extent of malpractice at his British newspaper subsidiary.

The committee, which reports to News Corp. executive vice president Joel Klein, has been pouring through millions of old emails and other documents and confirmed Saturday it had been turning over relevant findings to police.

Britain’s National Union of Journalists claims some News International staff are outraged by this practice. The union’s general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said reporters accuse Murdoch of "trying to pin the blame on individual journalists hoping that a few scalps will salvage his corporate reputation."

Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun’s associate editor, told the BBC on Monday that many staff are uneasy about the activities of the management standards committee.

"There’s certainly a mood of unhappiness that the company — certain parts of the company … are actually boasting that they’re sending information to the police," he said.

Investigations into illegality at Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid, The Sun and other newspapers has already led to a raft of arrests — including police officers, executives and well-known British tabloid journalists.

Two top London police officers and several senior Murdoch executives have resigned in the scandal, which also prompted Andy Coulson — a former News of The World editor — to quit as Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications director.