Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, on Tuesday denied responsibility for alleged phone hacking at his News of the World newspaper but admitted to a committee of MPs that the heads of his British business had failed to inform him of key developments as the scandal unfolded.
Mr Murdoch, flanked by his son James, described his appearance before the media select committee as “the most humble day of my life”.
He said that he was “clearly” misled by his staff after originally claiming that phone hacking was the work of a small number of rogue employees, following the first police investigation into the practice in 2007.
Questioned by Tom Watson, the Labour MP, Mr Murdoch said that he was not informed about allegations that News of the World employees made payments to police, given that News International made up only a small part of his News Corp empire. “The News of the World perhaps I lost sight of because it was so small in the general frame of our company,” he said.
“This is not as an excuse. Maybe it’s an explanation of my laxity… I employ 53,000 people around the world.”
Rupert Murdoch often struggled to hear questions and attempted to defer several answers to his son, but was prevented from doing so by questioners. Shares in News Corp rose around 4 per cent in New York at the time of the hearing, amid reports that some shareholders were pushing for Chase Carey, its chief operating officer, to replace Mr Murdoch as chief executive.
Mr Murdoch said he was informed of the conviction of Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s royal correspondent, but was not made aware of further allegations of misconduct by senior reporters, involving blackmail, and lawyers’ apparent mishandling of e-mails.
He said he was also unaware of settlement payments in the hundreds of thousands of pounds made to some victims of phone hacking, which were approved by his son James.
Further, he claimed he was unaware that a previous committee of MPs had found News International executives guilty of “collective amnesia”.
“It is revealing in itself what he doesn’t know and what executives chose to tell him,” Mr Watson said of the News Corp chief.
The phone hacking scandal has gripped the British public public, many of whom spent the afternoon grouped around televisions in pubs, and generated dozens of related messages on Twitter every second, according to Tweetminster.
James Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer at News Corp and head of its international business, opened proceedings by apologising to the victims of phone hacking, although he was denied the opportunity to read out a prepared statement. “It’s a matter of great regret of mine and my father’s and everyone at News Corp.”
Quizzed over out of court settlements, he said he took the decision to sanction the payments over phone hacking in 2007 – including one of £700,000 to a hacking victim – confident that the issue had been dealt with following the arrest and prosecution of Clive Goodman, royal reporter at the News of the World, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator.
In a series of questions which revealed that he did not have a handle on the internal machinations of News International during the 2006-2007 phone hacking case, James Murdoch said he did not know whether News International paid legal fees for Mr Goodman’s defence in 2007, before he became its chief executive. He said that after that time: “I was very surprised to find that the company had made certain contributions to legal fees.”
Rupert Murdoch said that Les Hinton, the former News International chief who resigned as chief executive of News Corp’s Dow Jones last week, “could have been” responsible for sanctioning the payments.
The pair said that Mr Hinton would have been paid a “considerable” sum on his departure but that any confidentiality agreements would not stop a him from co-operating fully” with legal investigations.
James Murdoch said there had been no “immediate plans” on whether to launch another Sunday paper – expected to be called the Sun on Sunday – to fill the yawning gap left by the News of the World. “We leave the options open that is no the company’s priority now, in the past week it has come up but...[it is] not the time to be worrying about that.”
Ahead of the hearing, committee chairman John Whittingdale, referring to comments made by James Murdoch as he announced the closure of the News of the World, said: “The reason we have asked James Murdoch in particular is that he has publicly stated that we have been misled. We want to know who misled us.”
Before the culture committee quizzed News International executives, the home affairs select committee began questioning the two senior Metropolitan Police officers who have both quit within the past 36 hours as the scandal deepens.
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