Murdoch wants BSkyB - will he get it?

[Jan Klimkowski]

Ignore "Prof" Grenslade's misleading headline. The spooky goons of Kroll are conducting their, ahem, investigation through selective leaks to MSM hacks:

Daily Telegraph internal inquiry clears journalists of Vince Cable leak

Telegraph's IT team questioned about leak of business secretary's 'declaration of war' on Rupert Murdoch to BBC

Roy Greenslade guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 March 2011 16.22 GMT

The Daily Telegraph's journalists have been provisionally cleared by an internal investigation into the leak of taped recordings of Vince Cable "declaring war" on Rupert Murdoch.

An inquiry by the private investigation firm Kroll for Telegraph Media Group has initially concluded that none of the paper's editorial staff were involved in the leak of the explosive recording to the BBC's Robert Peston.

Kroll's inquiries have concentrated instead on trying to explain how the BBC obtained the tape recording of Cable's remarks, and whose airing on BBC News forced David Cameron to strip Cable of his responsibility for media mergers.

An inside source said members of the Telegraph's IT team had been closely questioned about the leak. They included the former technical support manager, Jim Robinson, who was questioned in January.

He chose to leave the Telegraph at the end of that month, and has since been appointed to a post at News International. Robinson has not yet started his new job because he is currently serving a three-month period of gardening leave.

It is known that Robinson, who had spent 17 years with the Telegraph group, was particularly incensed by the questioning. A friend said he was upset at what he called "an interrogation" that called into question his integrity and his loyalty to the company.

At another point, it is understood that the questioner offered him amnesty if he confessed. "We'll forget about you," he was told, "if you give us Mr Big."

Robinson, who was strenuous in his denials of any involvement in the leaking of material, is said to have been amazed at the offer that, he told friends, made no sense to him.

Kroll's inquiry, which one editorial executive described as "frighteningly thorough", is continuing.

It follows a bizarre episode in December when Cable told two Telegraph reporters, who posed as constituents, that he had "declared war" on Murdoch by referring his offer to buy out BSkyB to the media regulator Ofcom.

The paper published other comments made by Cable on 20 December, but omitted his quotes about Murdoch from its initial report.

Instead, the remarks were published by Peston, the BBC's business editor, on his blog, and the tape was played on the BBC news.

Ever since the incident, the circumstances surrounding the leak have been the subject of intense speculation.

Robert Peston told the Guardian he had received the recording from a whistleblower, who told him at the time that the Telegraph "had made a commercial decision not to publish those remarks".

It was widely alleged that the Telegraph chose not to publish Cable's comments about Murdoch because it believed it would lead to his sacking as business secretary, removing a potentially serious obstacle to Sky's efforts to buy out BSkyB.

TMG is a leading member of the alliance of media groups opposed to News Corp's bid to acquire the 60.9% of BSkyB it does not already own.

The newspaper vigorously denied pulling the story for commercial reasons, insisting it was an editorial decision.

It chose to lead the paper on Cable's assertion that he had the power to pull down the coalition government if he so wished.

Senior figures said the Murdoch story was a secondary, media matter and that it had been planning to run that on the following day.

Cable has since complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the paper's use of "subterfuge". The PCC inquiry is ongoing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar...cable-leak