Rupert Murdoch showed “wilfull blindness” about phone hacking at his News of the World tabloid and is not fit to run a major company, a British parliamentary committee said in a scathing report Tuesday.
The committee said the tycoon’s British newspaper arm News International had misled parliament, adding that the 81-year-old tycoon and his son James, 39, should take corporate responsibility for wrongdoing at the paper.
“Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company,” the cross-party culture, media and sport committee said in its long-awaited report on the scandal.
“In failing to investigate properly, and by ignoring evidence of widespread wrongdoing, 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 committee approved the report by six to four, split between members of the opposition Labour party who backed its findings, and Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives, who opposed them. The 121-page report also singled out three ex-Murdoch aides — former News International executive chairman Les Hinton, News of the World editor Colin Myler and legal manager Tom Crone — as having deliberately misled parliament. The panel said it was now for parliament’s lower House of Commons to decide “what punishment should be imposed” on 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 satellite broadcaster 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 apologizes to everyone whose privacy was invaded,” it said in a statement. 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 stood down as executive chairman of News International in February but remains on the board of BSkyB — both gave evidence to the committee on July 19 last year. Murdoch senior was attacked with a shaving foam pie by a comedian during the hearing. The lawmakers on the panel accused News International of a wide-ranging cover-up. “Their instinct throughout, until it was too late, was to cover up rather than seek out wrongdoing and discipline the perpetrators,” the report said. “Corporately, the News of the World and News International misled the committee about the true nature and extent of the internal investigations they professed to have carried out in relation to phone hacking.”
