• by Ray Schultz , Today

The UK publishing business was rocked this week by the news that Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) had agreed to pay “substantial damages” to Christopher Jefferies for allegedly invading his privacy. 

Jefferies was arrested for the murder of Joanna Yeates, one of his tenants, in 2010, and quickly exonerated, but not before Murdoch’s Sun tore into his private life with a series of lurid articles, The Guardian reports. 

These stories had “had a damaging and long-lasting effect on him and his private life, including his standing in the community and to his relationships with some friends,” the court was told, according to The Guardian. 

Jefferies filed suit in 2022, alleging voicemail interception. It is only now being revealed that the case was settled last November, The Guardian adds. An apology was offered in court. 

The real killer is now serving 20 years in prison.

This follows a journalistic howler, perhaps a more lighthearted one. The Times of London published criticism of Zohran Mamdani, purportedly made via ChatGPT by former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. But de Blasio denied making the comments, and it was found that they were made by one Bill DeBlasio of Long Island. The former mayor enthusiastically supports Mamdani, who on Tuesday was elected mayor of New York.