2011 News Corporation scandals

In mid-2011, out of a series of investigations following up the News of the World royal phone hacking scandal of 2005–2007, a series of related scandals developed surrounding other News Corporation properties—where initially the scandal appeared contained to a single journalist at the News of the World (with the 2007 jailing of Clive Goodman and the resignation of then-editor Andy Coulson), investigations eventually revealed a much wider pattern of wrongdoing. This led to the closure of the News of the World on 10 July 2011, an apology by Rupert Murdoch in an advertisement in most British national newspapers, and the withdrawing of News Corporation's bid to take over the majority of BSkyB shares it did not own.

Investigations continued into what the company and individuals at the company knew of the phone hacking and when, as well as into other issues, including questions around police bribery. Since police renewed investigations in 2011, 90 people have been arrested and 16 charged with crimes in conjunction with illegal acquisition of confidential information, many if not most of them employees or agents of News Corp.

In a September 2010 interview broadcast on 7 July 2011, on the BBC Radio 4 news programme The World at One, former News of the World features editor Paul McMullan made an admission relating to police corruption. He told of having used material obtained by a colleague's bribery of a police officer as the basis of a series of articles published over several years on Jennifer Elliott, the daughter of the actor Denholm Elliott. He stated, 'The going rate for that kind of thing might have been two to five hundred pounds and that would have been authorised, and he [i.e. the police officer] would have been paid... and he would have been on the lookout for another story...' The articles described Ms Elliott's destitute situation and stated that she had worked as a prostitute. Jennifer Elliott killed herself in 2003. In Mr McMullan's opinion the News of the World — specifically, his own articles — contributed significantly to her suicide. In 2011, the paper knowingly used private investigators to gain stories from corrupt police officers.

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