Rebekah Brooks was told Rupert Murdoch wanted more serious news in the Sun

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/29/brooks-murdoch-news-the-sun-fergus-shanahan-news-corp

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Rupert Murdoch once complained that the Sun was “too light” and demanded the then editor Rebekah Brooks put more stories of “substance” into the paper, a jury has heard.

Brooks was warned in 2005 that there was “no escape” from the proprietor’s eagle-eyed scrutiny of the paper.

Referring to his initials KRM (Keith Rupert Murdoch), the paper’s then deputy editor Fergus Shanahan told Brooks in an email that Murdoch was on a mission and was going through the paper with a “fine-tooth comb” and there was “no escape”.

“KRM is on a mission again for SUBSTANCE … He thinks we too light … No serious news, no serious news,” Shanahan wrote.

“I know we do, but can we make sure everyday we have ALL the main serious news … ie get the news headlines from home and abroad and make sure they in.

“And next week from Sunday for Monday we need to be absolutely on the ball. He goes thru with fine tooth comb … so no escape.”

Brooks, then Wade, replied copying in her senior editors: “No probs. I will be back.”

Shanahan, 60, who was arrested three years ago in relation to a police investigation into allegations of inappropriate payments to public officials, had visions of being with the company for many years to come, the jury at the Old Bailey trial of four Sun journalists was told on Thursday.

In a performance review in 2008, Brooks noted that Shanahan had continued to write “an incisive column for the paper as well as providing political strategy for background”.

He had by then been promoted to executive editor and she noted that he wanted to be “more involved in HQ2”, a reference to the company’s move from Wapping.

Brooks said: “In particular the way the newsroom will look in the next 20 or 30 years”. She said he had “brilliant and new ideas on the future of newspapers”.

Shanahan, who in a separate email described himself as one of Brooks’s “most faithful supporters”, responded to her assessment by thanking her. “I do feel that there is tremendous scope with HQ2 to do something sensational.”

The jury also heard he was once described as “one of the Sun’s biggest stars” but warned that he must “learn to be less abrasive with people he does not like”.

The 2008 internal assessment was handed to the police by the management and standards committee, an internal body set up by parent company News Corp in 2011 to liaise with detectives investigating the publisher.

He was ranked as “outstanding” by his bosses, who noted he “still hadn’t reached his full potential”, the jury was told.

The 11 jurors heard that Shanahan rose through the ranks to become deputy editor and a columnist on the paper but that by 2007 he had resigned himself to not getting the top job, telling the paper’s chief reporter John Kay that he had “no realistic prospect of being editor”.

The full performance review read: “The best night editor in Fleet Street, thrusting, dynamic, innovative and a great leader.

“Works astonishingly long hours at a breakneck pace without ever complaining. His arrogance and single-mindedness are a necessary part of the job.

“However he most learn to be less abrasive with people he does not like. Has flourished as a Sunday editor, one of the Sun’s biggest stars and still not reached his full potential.”

Shanahan, Kay, the paper’s deputy editor Geoff Webster and royal correspondent Duncan Larcombe stand accused of being involved in a conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office by paying public officials for stories. All four deny all charges.

Separately, the jury heard that Webster had told police he had never been complicit in a plot to pay any public officials for stories.

The jury heard he was interviewed under caution in October 2010 and was quizzed about emails to Kay who had requested payments to his “number one military source” for stories.

Webster told police “he did not have the faintest idea if a military contact was in the military”.

He told them that “John Kay’s sources were his responsibility as a serious and experienced reporter” and that he would never have asked him to disclose them.

In the summary of the police interview read to the jury it was said that “Webster stated it could not be said he was complicit in payments to public officials because he wasn’t. He had done nothing wrong.

“Mr Webster would not dream of asking journalists about their sources and he did not dream in a million years, he would have been told if they had been asked,” the summary said.

In a statement to police, Larcombe said he considered himself an “ethical journalist and a law-abiding person” who had not ever corrupted anyone or encouraged anyone to misconduct themselves in public office.

He said he had, in his career, “actively assisted” police inquiries which resulted in four prosecutions.