Murdoch Calls Police ‘Incompetent’

In the midst of Rupert Murdoch’s phone-hacking scandal in March, a 45-minute tape of the media mogul railing against police incompetency to a room of Sun newspaper reporters was secretly recorded and recently obtained by Britain’s Channel 4. Speaking to a room of journalists who had been arrested over claims they’d bribed authorities for information, Murdoch calls the arrests “a disgrace” and says, “The cops are totally incompetent.” He also acknowledged the widespread practice of illegal newsgathering, noting, “I don’t know of anybody, or anything, that did anything that wasn’t being done across Fleet Street and wasn’t the culture.”