On Tape, Murdoch Criticizes Hacking Investigators, Broadcaster Says

In the recording, apparently made in March during a meeting with journalists at Mr. Murdoch’s tabloid The Sun, Mr. Murdoch is heard saying of the investigation: “It’s a disgrace. Here we are, two years later, and the cops are totally incompetent.”

“The idea that the cops then started coming after you, kick you out of bed, and your families, at 6 in the morning is unbelievable,” he said, dismissing the investigation as “the biggest inquiry ever, over next to nothing.”

Channel 4 News, which broadcast the recording, said it had been obtained by an investigative Web site called Exaro. The channel said the tone of the remarks seemed markedly at odds with Mr. Murdoch’s public insistence that he felt “humbled” by the hacking scandal.

Since July 2011, Mr. Murdoch’s newspaper outpost in Britain has been under close scrutiny by Parliament, by a separate judicial inquiry and by the police, who are investigating accusations of illicit phone tapping, corruption and other misbehavior, particularly at The News of the World, a Sunday tabloid that is now closed. Scores of former Murdoch employees have been arrested as the scandal raised questions about hidden ties among the news media, the police and the political elite.

In the recording, Mr. Murdoch also referred to a decision by his company’s management and standards committee, referred to in the recording as the M.S.C., to hand over a trove of e-mails and other material to investigators.

“It was a mistake, I think. But in that atmosphere, at that time, we said, ‘Look, we are an open book, we will show you everything.’ And the lawyers just got rich going through millions of e-mails,” he said, promising to support journalists caught up in the investigation.

“I will do everything in my power to give you total support, even if you’re convicted and get six months or whatever,” he said.

“You’re all innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “What you’re asking is: What happens if some of you are proven guilty? What afterward? I’m not allowed to promise you — I will promise you continued health support — but your jobs, I’ve got to be careful what comes out — but, frankly, I won’t say it, but just trust me.”

Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation, based in New York, said in a statement, “No other company has done as much to identify what went wrong, compensate the victims, and ensure the same mistakes do not happen again.”

Tom Watson, a legislator who has taken a lead in criticizing Mr. Murdoch, said he hoped that the police would now investigate Mr. Murdoch “about what he did know about criminality in his organization.”

Some British news media analysts suggested that the fact that Mr. Murdoch’s remarks had been recorded and leaked — potentially turning tabloid eavesdropping tactics against the tycoon himself — showed that not all of the Sun journalists attending the March meeting had been satisfied by his assurance of support.

Greece Shuts Down State Broadcaster ERT

Orestis Panagiotou/European Pressphoto AgencyEmployees of the state broadcaster ERT protested at the company's headquarters north of Athens.

ATHENS — In a surprise move, Greece’s conservative-led coalition government shut down the state broadcaster on Tuesday as part of a cost-cutting drive imposed by the country’s foreign creditors, prompting protests from labor unions and the government’s increasingly alienated junior partners, which said they had not been consulted.

Employees of ERT, some of them in tears, sat on the steps of the company's headquarters in Agia Paraskevi on Tuesday.

The government cut the signal of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, known as ERT, just after 11 p.m., about an hour earlier than it had said it would. Earlier in the day, a government spokesman, Simos Kedikoglou, described ERT as a “modern-day scandal” and “a unique case of lack of transparency and waste,” and said it would reopen soon as a “modern state organization” with a fraction of its 2,900 employees.

ERT has not been implicated in corruption scandals any more than any other state organization, and Mr. Kedikoglou’s strong language was broadly seen as the government’s attempt to show creditors that it was boldly and decisively moving to cut waste in the public sector.

Following the broadcast of the spokesman’s remarks on Net, one of ERT’s television channels, the station’s anchors and commentators engaged in a furious live discussion lamenting their fate.

Net’s midday news anchor, Antonis Alafogiorgos, lashed out at the government for accusing the state broadcaster of corruption. “This hypocrisy has to stop,” he said before playing a video from last month showing Mr. Kedikoglou insisting that the state would protect ERT from cutbacks. “None of us want the government to fall,” Mr. Alafogiorgos said, “but these methods are unacceptable.” Echoing other journalists in the live debate, the anchor said his concern was not for his job but for ERT to remain operational. “Mr. Kedikoglou can take my compensation and do what he wants with it,” he said.

Reacting to the news, unions representing the workers crowded outside the broadcaster’s headquarters, north of Athens, and told reporters that they would stage sit-ins to protest the closing of ERT’s five state television channels — three broadcast, one satellite and one cable — and 29 radio stations. (ERT has 2,650 full-time employees and about 250 people on short-term contracts.)

Standing with the protesters, a spokesman for the main leftist opposition party, Syriza, accused the government of “extreme despotism” in closing ERT.

Earlier in the day, the government submitted an emergency bill to Greece’s Parliament — a type of decree that does not require lawmakers’ approval — enabling the merging and abolition of state companies and paving the way for ERT’s closure. The move prompted an angry response by the junior partners in the coalition government — the Socialist Party, known as Pasok, and the more moderate Democratic Left — which accused the dominant conservatives of failing to consult them, an increasingly common complaint.

“The public broadcaster cannot close,” Pasok said in a statement. “A three-party government cannot make decisions without the participation of all party leaders.”

The surprise announcement came a day after representatives of Greece’s troika of foreign lenders — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — returned to Athens for fresh talks on the progress of the country’s economic reform program. A focus of the talks is a Greek pledge to lay off 4,000 civil servants this year, including 2,000 over the summer. Speculation has been rife in recent weeks that the bloated state broadcaster could be a target for the first round of layoffs demanded by the troika.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 11, 2013

An earlier version of this article, as well as the summary and caption, misstated the broadcaster’s name. It is the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, known as ERT, not Net. (Net is the name of one of its television channels.)