(Photo: Rick Maiman/Polaris)

Ron who? After catching wind of Ron Burkle’s secretly taped meetings with Jared Paul Stern, Post editor-in-chief Col Allan, managing editor Colin Myler, and others met privately inside the News Corp. offices late on April 6 with chairman Rupert Murdoch to inform him of the looming scandal. The editors, according to the story circulating around the Post newsroom, first wanted to know if Murdoch had a secret history with Burkle, who sent their boss a personal letter to complain about “Page Six” ’s swipes at him. Murdoch’s response? “Isn’t that guy my neighbor?” In fact, Murdoch’s West Coast pad is only a few mansions down Angelo Drive in Beverly Hills from Burkle’s eight-bedroom estate. (A spokesman for Burkle described the two as “acquaintances.”) One Post insider also says it was Murdoch who ordered the newspaper’s editors to break the embarrassing Stern story on the Post’s Website—before the Daily News could do it. A Murdoch spokesman didn’t return calls.

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Geoffrey Gray
• Table of Contents: April 24, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!