Private Eye broke Murdoch recording three weeks ago, so why is it only hitting the headlines now?

Investigative journalism website Exaro and Channel 4 News claimed an impressive 'exclusive' this week by releasing the tape recording of Rupert Murdoch speaking to arrested Sun staff.

But it’s worth noting that some of the biggest lines from the recording were broken by Private Eye more than three weeks ago.

Eye journalist Adam Macqueen, who spent "months rather than weeks" standing the story up, admitted he was “disappointed” to see the story break on a large scale from a different source.

He also revealed that the Eye did not work with Exaro and said the website may well have gotten the story from a “totally different source”. He said: “I do know there was more than one tape recorder in the room”.

Following the Eye story, Macqueen said he was surprised that no British journalists approached the magazine to follow it up.

“People were in touch with us saying, ‘we’re always a bit dubious about things in Private Eye – is it definitely true?’ – which is an insulting question to be asked,” he said.

“It’s always a bit frustrating when stories you’ve done go big elsewhere, but the Eye is used to it.

“And it’s more frustrating when you’ve got a story that you think is really big and it vanishes without trace and no one follows it up.

He added: “There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to it…

“I think there is still a residual feeling of: it’s Private Eye, it’s a good story, it might not be true – which is, of course, utter nonsense.”

The Eye did not release a transcript of the recording, like Exaro, but its account did include quotes on the culture of Fleet Street, his support for arrested journalists and information on who will likely succeed him as chairman of News Corp.

Mark Watts, the editor-in-chief of Exaro, claimed that the Eye story had “less than 1% of the story”, and said this explained why it was only followed up this week.

Asked how he felt about the story being lauded as an Exaro-Channel 4 exclusive this week, Macqueen said: “I think we’ll make quite a bit of noise about it being ours.

“It was nice that people noticed on Twitter. It was one of the very few things that we actually put up on the website, so several people have been pointing in that direction."