Media figure Ita Buttrose says Rupert Murdoch suggested she have someone followed while chasing a story in her time as editor-in-chief of the Sunday Telegraph and Daily Telegraph.

In Monday night's Australian Story, Ms Buttrose said the media mogul asked her to "go beyond what I thought I should do".

Ms Buttrose said the request came while working on a story at Mr Murdoch's request.

"I assigned a reporter to do it but [Mr Murdoch] wasn't happy with the result and said, 'No, that wasn't good enough. Have you followed this person?'."

Approaching then News Limited chief executive Ken Cowley, Ms Buttrose claims she said: "I can't give this instruction. I'm not having anybody that works for me, for whom I'm responsible, follow anybody. I don't want to be a part of it."

A News Limited spokesman in Sydney said Ms Buttrose's allegations are false.

"Mr Murdoch has never asked any journalist to do anything improper," the spokesman said.

"Mr Cowley has never been asked by Mr Murdoch to have a reporter conduct surveillance of any kind on any individual and nor would he have agreed to it had he been asked by Mr Murdoch or anyone else."

Ms Buttrose declined to reveal the subject of the print feature.

Ultimately "it was dropped, we didn't go on", she said.

"If you run a newspaper there's a responsibility that goes with it, and sometimes you have to be able to say to the boss, no, I don't think we should go down this path."

At 39, Ms Buttrose was the first woman to edit a major metropolitan newspaper in Australia.

She stayed at News Limited for four years, although "Rupert once said to me that he's got everything he wants out of an editor in 18 months".