News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch personally told one of his former tabloid editors to have someone followed, according to a documentary that aired Monday night on Australian TV.

Ita Buttrose, former editor-in-chief of Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph, told ABC’s Australian Story that Murdoch instructed her to have a subject tailed because legitimate reporting techniques were not producing the desired results.

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

“I can’t give this instruction,” Buttrose later told then-News Limited chief executive Ken Cowley. “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.”

Murdoch’s Australian-based News Limited vehemently denied the accusation.

“Mr. Murdoch has never asked any journalist to do anything improper,” a 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,” he added.

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Buttrose said that in the end, the matter was “dropped.”

“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.”

Watch this video from ABC’s This Week, broadcast Aug. 21, 2011.

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