AUSTRALIAN MEDIA:

News Crap Australia has reactivated a special internal committee of inquiry after senior editorial staff expressed fresh concerns about missing a key development in a major international story.

The committee (main picture) was established in July after editors across the News Crap Australia group were shocked that they had failed to report the then separation and likely divorce of the media conglomerate’s international chair Rupert Murdoch and his fourth wife, former fashion model Jerry Hall.

Although it is still to report on that matter, the committee of inquiry is being immediately reconvened to determine how and why News Crap Australia outlets missed news overnight that the couple’s divorce had been finalised.

An editor of one of the Murdoch media’s Australian metropolitan dailies interviewed this morning by The Bug  said he and his colleagues had been shocked once again that the group missed the story that had been reported by almost all other media outlets across the globe.

“It was bad enough that we somehow missed this big story back in July when the couple had separated and were heading for divorce – a fact that was somehow known to other media outlets,” the editor said.

“But just a month later we’ve seemingly been gazumped again now that their divorce has been finalised and a property settlement has been reached, according to other media reports I’ve read overnight.

“I just shake my head and wonder how on earth we as professional, crusading, and fearless journalists have somehow again missed reporting this development that’s of tremendous public interest.

“I can only assume that other media outlets must have some sort of special inside knowledge about what’s going on in the Murdoch family.”

The editor, who had to end the interview to attend an online hook-up of News Crap Australia editors running the group’s national Your Right To Know campaign, told The Bug he was certain senior editorial staff across the group would not rest until they had answers about the latest embarrassing lapse in professional standards.