Media Reform Coalition says meetings between mogul’s executives and the government show little has changed since hacking scandal and Leveson inquiry

Rupert Murdoch and senior News Corp executives met government ministers 10 times in the year to the end of March 2015, more than any other newspaper group, research has found.

Murdoch personally attended eight of those meetings, three of which were with chancellor George Osborne, three with then culture secretary Sajid Javid and two with then education secretary Michael Gove, according to an analysis of ministerial meetings published by the Media Reform Coalition.

Although the government has not revealed details of meetings since the May general election, the coalition, set up in 2011 in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, said “special access afforded to News Corporation executives has shown no signs of abatement in the aftermath of the phone hacking scandal and subsequent Leveson inquiry”.



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It has called for government ministers appointed since the May election to reveal details of their meetings with media groups. Labour MP Paul Farrelly and others have asked culture secretary John Whittingdale to disclose details of any meetings with Sky or News Corp executives while he was negotiating a financial settlement with the BBC announced in July.



David Cameron met News Corp editors and executives including chief executive Robert Thomson, six times between August and the end of March. He met Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre and also had dinner with him and Mail owner Lord Rothermere, as well as meeting the editor and chief executive of the Telegraph, Chris Evans and Aidan Barclay, three times.

During the same period Cameron met the BBC Trust chair Rona Fairhead twice and Nick Robinson, then BBC political editor, three times.



In the year from April 2014 to the end of March 2015, Osborne met News Corp editors and executives 18 times, including then Sun editor David Dinsmore five times and Times editor John Witherow three times. He also had various meetings with senior Telegraph executives, including Aidan Barclay, Evans and chief executive Murdoch MacLennan.



Osborne also had eight meetings with BBC executives and staff, including one with director general Tony Hall and strategy chief James Purnell, as well as three with former political editor Nick Robinson.



The year to date has brought good news for the Murdoch empire. Following the decision by the US Department of Justice, the Crown Prosecution Service announced last week that it would not pursue corporate charges against News Corporation for phone hacking.



In October, Whittingdale brought some relief to all newspaper groups when he suggested that financial incentives designed to encourage them to sign up to the new system of press regulation by forcing them to pay court costs in libel and privacy cases may be put on hold.

There is no evidence that Murdoch or any media executives discussed these issues with ministers.

A blog on the coalition website called for greater transparency for meetings between media executives and government ministers and officials.

“Simply publishing ‘lists’ of meetings with media executives is unlikely to restore any degree of public faith after the rampant institutional corruption between media and officials that was exposed during the Leveson hearings ... Such is the fog of transparency that endures around the nexus of media and political power.”

The government data shows that several meetings were crammed into a visit by Murdoch to the UK in February, just three weeks after US officials decided not to prosecute the company over phone hacking charges. On 25 February Michael Gove, a former Times journalist, had dinner with the executive chairman of the company along with the paper’s editor John Witherow and Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens. The next day Murdoch met Sajid Javid, who is now business secretary, before having lunch with Osborne.

A News Corp spokesperson said: “As the owner of HarperCollins, Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal and its WSJ City app, the ad tech company Unruly, printing plants and a number of UK publications, News Corp is a large employer in the UK, making a significant contribution to the economy and people’s lives.”

