Media giant under siege as MPs strike
RUPERT Murdoch was yesterday lambasted by a powerful group of MPs for turning a blind eye to instances of wrongdoing at News International.
The House of Commons’ culture, media and sport committee found after its five-year investigation concluded yesterday that “the whole affair demonstrates huge failings of corporate governance at [News International] and its parent company [News Corp]”, adding that the group’s chief executive Rupert Murdoch “exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on at his company.”
But MPs split along political lines over a clause in the report which said the tycoon “is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company”, using words widely seen as a reference to a current probe by Ofcom. The media regulator is looking into whether BSkyB, and its dominant shareholder News Corp, is a “fit and proper” owner of a broadcast licence and could force News Corp to divest some or all of its shares in BSkyB.
The relevant section, proposed as an amendment by Labour MP Tom Watson, scraped through with a vote of six to four MPs, with all the Tory members of the committee refusing to back the final report in its entirety.
Watson claimed he was standing up for what he believes because he wanted to avoid accusations that the committee ducked its responsibility. He expressed disappointment that not all committee members felt “inclined or confident to hold the most powerful to account”.
But Conservative MP Louise Mensch criticised Watson’s actions, calling the clause “wildly outside the scope of the committee” and an “improper attempt to influence Ofcom”.
Ofcom said it was reading the select committee’s report “with interest” and would continue to assess independently the evidence from the culture department’s inquiry.
The ten MPs were, however, unanimous in their agreement that three executives at News International “demonstrated contempt for parliament in the most blatant fashion”.
Former News International executive chairman Les Hinton, News Group Newspapers’ ex-legal manager Tom Crone and the final editor of the News of the World Colin Myler were singled out as having misled the committee by deliberately withholding information or answering questions untruthfully.
News Corp last night conceded the “hard truths… that there was serious wrongdoing at the News of the World, that our response… was too slow and too defensive, and that some of our employees misled the select committee”
But the media giant criticised the committee’s commentary on Rupert Murdoch, calling it “unjustified and highly partisan”.