News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch showed “wilful blindness” over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal and is not fit to lead a major company, British lawmakers said in a scathing report yesterday.
News International and its parent News Corporation exhibited wilful blindness
Parliament’s influential culture committee said Mr Murdoch’s British newspaper division News International had misled lawmakers, adding that the 81-year-old tycoon and his son James should take corporate responsibility.
But the committee itself was divided, with four members from Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives refusing to approve the long-awaited report against six members from other parties who backed the findings.
“Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company,” said the report, the result of hearings that started shortly after the News of the World shut last July.
“News International and its parent News Corporation exhibited wilful blindness, for which the companies’ directors – including Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch – should ultimately be prepared to take responsibility.”
The report singled out three ex-Murdoch aides – former News International executive chairman Les Hinton, the News of the World’s final editor Colin Myler and legal manager Tom Crone – for deliberately misleading parliament.
The cross-party panel said it was now for Parliament’s lower House of Commons to decide on a punishment for those it thinks have treated the committee with contempt.
Broadcasting regulators said meanwhile they would consider the report as part of its probe into whether pay-TV giant BSkyB, which is part-owned by News Corp., is still fit to hold a licence in Britain.
News Corp. said it was “carefully reviewing” the report and would “respond shortly”.
“The company fully acknowledges significant wrongdoing at News of the World and apologises to everyone whose privacy was invaded,” it said in a statement.
News Corp. shares were up 1.35 per cent at $19.87 in early trading in New York.
Mr Hinton, who resigned as head of News Corp.’s Dow Jones unit last year, said the committee’s findings were “unfounded, unfair and erroneous”, while Mr Myler, who is now editor of the New York Daily News, said he stood by his testimony.
Mr Murdoch shut the News of the World in July 2011 as the phone-hacking scandal exploded with revelations that the tabloid had accessed the voicemails of a murdered schoolgirl. Rupert and James, 39 – who quit as executive chairman of News International in February – both gave evidence to the committee on July 19.
The 121-page report released yesterday accused News International of instinctively trying to “cover up rather than seek out wrongdoing and discipline the perpetrators”.
While it did not directly accuse the Murdochs of misleading the committee, it had harsh words for the Australian-born tycoon.
“If at all relevant times Rupert Murdoch did not take steps to become fully informed about phone hacking, he turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications,” it said.
Mr Murdoch’s empire still comprises The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times newspapers in Britain, and the Wall Street Journal and Fox News in the United States.