Murdoch is a four-letter word

The theme was ‘animals of Indonesia’, but anyone who thought ‘LIVESIHCODRUM’, in The Sunday Telegraph’s weekly word puzzle, was something of the furry variety would have been mistaken.

The NewsCorp-owned Australian paper appeared to carry a hidden message, with the letters on the third line of the word search quiz spelling out ‘Murdoch is evil’ when read backwards.

Similar to backmasking, when messages can be found in musical tracks played backwards, the passive aggressive slight was hidden among words such as ‘dolphin’ and ‘orangutan’ in a children’s puzzle section of the newspaper.

Media first reported on the incident on Tuesday, but The Sunday Telegraph has declined to comment so far.

NewsCorp owns more than 17 brands in Murdoch’s home country and the papers have a weekly circulation exceeding 10 million – making it Australia's largest media company.

The Sunday Telegraph has a readership of more than 1.3 million.