News Corp. lawyers contacted the staff of the New York Post on Friday with instructions "to preserve and maintain all documents and information that are related in any way" to phone hacking or payments to government officials. The staff is asked to interpret the terms "documents" and "related in any way" very broadly.

A memo from Post editor Col Allan reads:

By now, you have received an email from News Corporation’s in-house legal counsel to preserve and maintain documents.

All New York Post employees have been asked to do this in light of what has gone on in London at News of the World, and not because any recipient has done anything improper or unlawful.

As we watched the news in the U.K. over the last few weeks, we knew that as a News Corporation tabloid, we would be looked at more closely. So this is not unexpected.

Romenesko has the full memo here.

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Adam Clark Estes