ANOTHER ARREST IN NEWS CORP’S HACKERGATE SCANDAL

A twelfth person has been arrested in the British hackergate scandal that continues to rock Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire. Greg Miskiw, a former News of the World executive was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of unlawful interception of communications and released on bail today (Thursday). Miskiw had been living in Palm Beach, FL and voluntarily returned to the U.K. Today’s New York Times observed that he could provide information about which executives of the parent company might have known about the illegal voicemail hacking. Last week, Stuart Kuttner, the longtime managing editor of the now-defunct London tabloid was also arrested and released on bail. Also on Wednesday, Scotland Yard suspended its director of public affairs, Dick Fedorcio, while it continues its own internal investigation into why police failed to follow up on evidence of widespread phone hacking conducted by News of the World and reports that some officers had been paid by the tabloid for information. Fedorcio has been criticized by members of Parliament for his decision to hire a former deputy editor at News of the World as a public relations consultant for Scotland Yard. Wallis has also been arrested on suspicion of phone hacking and bribing police. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday made his most forceful public condemnation of the voicemail hacking. “I want to be very clear about where I stand,” he said during a conference call to discuss the company’s quarterly earnings report. “I’ve run this company for more than 50 years. The kind of behavior that occurred in that newsroom has no place in News Corp.” He also vowed “to get to the bottom of what happened.”