In a damning report after months of investigation into the hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers here, a British parliamentary panel concluded on Tuesday that Mr. Murdoch was “not a fit person” to run a huge international company.
The startling conclusion about the world’s most influential media tycoon went much further in criticizing Mr. Murdoch personally than had been expected from Parliament’s select committee on culture, media and sport, which has been conducting the latest of two inquiries into the hacking scandal since last July. ...NYT
That just came in, with the caveat that it's not the end of the story. The panel is divided in its verdict on Murdoch.
The committee said it had been split on party lines in the assessment of Mr. Murdoch, with the dominant Conservatives opposing the criticism while the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner in Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, and the Labour opposition supporting it. ...NYT
Conservatives, whether in the UK or the US, just can't stand the idea that one of their own could be "unfit." Morally unfit? Incompetent? Unfit by reason of age? Unfit by way of being sleazeball?
“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 willful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications,” the report said. “This culture, we consider, permeated from the top throughout the organization and speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International,” its British newspaper subsidiary.
“We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.”
The use of the term “fit person” could have repercussions with Britain’s media regulator, Ofcom, which may determine whether people who own major media outlets are qualified to do so. ...NYT
