James Murdoch blames News Corp underlings
BRITAIN: James Murdoch has written to British MPS accepting his ‘‘share of responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier’’ at the News of the World but blaming his former executives for not informing him of evidence of widespread hacking.
Murdoch, News Corporation’s deputy chief operating officer, urged the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee to stick to the facts and not to be swayed by ‘‘extensive commentary on my involvement’’ when drawing conclusions about his conduct. The committee is expected to criticise Murdoch in a report on the phone-hacking scandal due in the next few weeks.
He resigned last month as chairman of News International, which published the News of the World till its closure last July. Investors have also pressed him to resign as chairman of BSKYB.
In his letter to John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the committee, Murdoch writes that ‘‘with the benefit of hindsight ... it would have been better if I had asked more questions, requested more documents and scrutinised them carefully’’.
But he adds that he had ‘‘relied on the people who had assured me that thorough investigations had been carried out and that further investigations were unnecessary, and the statements made by the police to the same effect’’. Murdoch denies that had ‘‘turned a blind eye’’ and says that he had been given ‘‘what now appear to be false assurances’’ to questions he asked about phone hacking.
He accuses Tom Crone, News International’s former legal manager, and Colin Myler, the News of the World’s former Editor, of giving him a ‘‘narrower set of facts than I should have been given’’ at a meeting in 2008 at which he approved a £425,000 (then about NZ$1 million) settlement for Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association.
Crone and Myler told the committee last year that they had informed Murdoch at the meeting of the significance of an email which indicated that more than one reporter was involved in phone hacking.
Myler also forwarded Murdoch an email in 2008 which referred to an allegation that hacking ‘‘was rife throughout the organisation’’.
Murdoch said in December that he had not read that part of the email. Twice in the letter, Murdoch accuses Crone and Myler of giving ‘‘inconsistent’’ evidence to the committee in contrast to his own, which he says ‘‘has always been consistent’’.
Murdoch says he did not investigate allegations of widespread hacking made by The Guardian in 2009 because he was ‘‘assured by News of the World executives that the matter had been investigated in the past by a firm of outside lawyers’’. He says he also relied on a statement from the police that no further investigation was required.