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indiantelevision.com Team
MUMBAI: In a major setback for Rupert Murdoch, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the British Parliament which is probing the phone hacking scandal at News International has ruled that the News Corp chief is ?unfit? to lead the company.
The committee in its report to the Parliament accused the media tycoon of "wilful blindness" by deliberately covering up evidence of phone hacking at his UK publishing business which eventually led to the closure of 168 year old News of the World news paper.
"On the basis of the facts and evidence before the Committee, we conclude that, 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.
"This culture, we consider, permeated from the top throughout the organisation and speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International. We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company," the committe said in the conclusion of its report.
Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch had last week laid the blame of phone hacking on subordinates, insisting that they were unaware of the wrong doing at the News of the World.
According to reports, the verdict has divided political parties in Britian with Labour Party panel member Tom Watson saying the decision had not been unanimous, and Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch saying the split had been along party lines.
In a press statement, News Corp.regretted the committee?s tough language terming them as regretful and partisan.
"Hard truths have emerged from the Select Committee Report: that there was serious wrongdoing at the News of the World; that our response to the wrongdoing was too slow and too defensive; and that some of our employees misled the Select Committee in 2009," the statement read.
"News Corporation regrets, however, that the Select Committee?s analysis of the factual record was followed by some commentary that we, and indeed several members of the committee, consider unjustified and highly partisan. These remarks divided the members along party lines.
"We have already confronted and have acted on the failings documented in the Report: we have conducted internal reviews of operations at newspapers in the United Kingdom and indeed around the world, far beyond anything asked of us by the Metropolitan Police; we have volunteered any evidence of apparent wrongdoing to the authorities; and, we have instituted sweeping changes in our internal controls and our compliance programs on a world-wide basis, to help ensure that nothing like this ever happens again anywhere at News Corporation.
"As we move forward, our goal is to make certain that in every corner of the globe, our company acts in a manner of which our 50,000 employees and hundreds of thousands of shareholders can be justly proud."
Meanwhile, satellite broadcaster BSkyB, which is part owned by News Corp, has asserted that is a ?fit and proper? licence holder and was engaging with the regulator Ofcom in its assessment of BSkyB?s suitability.
Ofcom is reviewing whether Rupert and James Murdoch are ?fit and proper? to hold a broadcast licence following charges of phone hacking.
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