E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSLONDON - A British parliamentary committee on Tuesday published a sequence of emails which raised questions about the story News Corp's James Murdoch told to legislators about what he knew about phone hacking allegations involving the now-defunct News of the World and when he knew it.
In the email sequence, dated Saturday, June 7, 2008, James Murdoch was advised by Colin Myler, then News of the World editor, that the paper's legal position regarding a legal threat from professional soccer union executive Gordon Taylor was "as bad as we feared."
Attached to this message was an email exchange between Myler and Tom Crone, the News of the World's principal in-house lawyer, in which Crone mentioned a "nightmare scenario."
The Independent newspaper on Wednesday published the email exchange between James Murdoch and Colin Myler, as well as the email exchange between Tom Crone and Colin Myler.
Crone explained that this scenario related to the fact that "several voicemails" on an email addressed to News of the World reporter Ross Hindley were "taken from" a phone used by Joanne Armstrong, a lawyer for the Professional Footballers Association union, which Taylor led.
The Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday that James Murdoch had written to British members of parliament, saying he had received the email chain over a weekend which was partly why he "did not review the full email chain at the time or afterwards."
The email sent to Hindley, which, in a reference to the News of the World's chief reporter, was headed "For Neville", is regarded by investigators and lawyers as one of the first pieces of evidence to reach the public domain demonstrating that phone hacking was a practice which extended beyond a single "rogue" journalist.
'Slipshod manager'
Executives of News International, the British newspaper publisher headed by James Murdoch at the time of the email exchange, initially claimed in public statements and testimony to parliament that phone hacking was limited to Clive Goodman, a News of the World journalist who was jailed in 2007 for hacking into the voice mails of aides to members of Britain's Royal Family.
In parliamentary testimony earlier this year, James Murdoch maintained that while he was aware of the existence of some kind of email, he was not informed in 2008 that it constituted possible evidence of widespread phone hacking by News of the World journalists other than Goodman.
James Murdoch's handling of the phone hacking crisis has raised questions about his status as presumptive heir to his father, News Corp founder and chairman Rupert Murdoch.
Chris Bryant, a member of parliament for Britain's Labour Party who was a target of phone hacking, told Reuters on Tuesday that at a minimum, the email sequence newly published by the committee "says to me that James Murdoch is a remarkably slipshod manager .... He's been slipshod and News International have been slippery."
In a letter also made public by the parliamentary committee on Tuesday, James Murdoch told the panel "I was not aware of evidence that either pointed to widespread wrongdoing or indicated that further investigation was necessary." Nonetheless, he said he wished to "apologize" that this material had "only now come to light" in a late stage of the Parliamentary inquiry.
Tom Watson, another Labour Party member of parliament and a leading member of the Media Select Committee, was skeptical, the Independent reported, saying, "How can the company have just found this important email trail?"
The Culture, Media and Sport committee is scheduled to publish a report on its phone hacking investigation sometime in the next few months.
A spokesperson for News International said the company had no comment beyond the statements made by James Murdoch in his latest letter to the Parliamentary committee.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Fifth victim found as police profile Belgium killer
- Iraqis unable to defend their borders as US exits
- Hunt for terrorists shifts to 'dangerous' North Africa, Panetta says
- US halts $700 million in Pakistan aid, demands action on Taliban
- Chinese artist depicts portraits of corruption
- NJ basketball tycoon launches Russia presidency bid
Leave a Comment:
Fair and balanced.
I was reading somewhere that people who watch Fair and Balanced Faux News have an IQ 17.5 points lower than general population.
General population IQ is 100, minus 17.5 equals 82.5. That is in the dullness range but above borderline deficiency in intelligence. You are being kind to Fox viewers.
Attention all Fox News Scholars: Your "news" source is corrupt on both sides of the pond.
Poor James ..... he doesn't read his mail well ! .... This is the type of material that executives & politicians rarely discuss ...in writing, or emails, its done on a one on one basis .. it's to easy to leave a trail of evidence, as James Murdock did.
James screwed up big time ... and daddy lost a lot because of it .... BUT James is still heir apparent ..... he learned from this one .....
Did James Murdock not read his own publication? Even if he did not (thoroughly) read it, did he not wonder how some of its many "scoops" were obtained? If James Murdock directed this behavior (or only condoned it), it is virtually certain Rupert Murdock is complicit.
The Murdock cabal should be prosecuted. Those found guilty should be jailed. We must no longer tolerate this arrogant disregard for rules (even law) by those at the economic top.
The Murdock's and Fox are serial liars.
During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so. After the appeal verdict WTVT general manager Bob Linger commented, “It’s vindication for WTVT, and we’re very pleased… It’s the case we’ve been making for two years. She never had a legal claim.”
http://www.relfe.com/media_can_legally_lie.html
the internet is a public forum....major dumb!
James Murdoch is trying to fall back on the old excuse: "I didn't know what was going on." He wants to minimise his culpability by feigning ignorance rather than admitting guilt.
What a jerk, just a chip off the old block. The entire Murdoch clan has run rough shod over how news organizations compete for a long time now. The family is wealthy enough to find a way to blame others for their chicanery, then buy the silence of those they trash. They need to be run out of the news business both in the U.S. and in England.
In effect the Murdoch family has made it difficult for reporters and news organizations to engage in reasoned discourse. The result has been an increasing attention to wild extremes and out right lies just to grab attention.
James and Rupert both belong in prison for life. Typical RepukliCONS, corrupt and still lying...
Damn I if could only remember to READ my emails then I might know what I'm supposed to know... Like where the delete button is. It must be hard to be that stupid...
This just shows that the Murdochs knew full well their reporters and investigators were hacking into phone accounts. Beside those large payouts to defendants would have to have been approved by Murdoch himself, no accountant or CFO was going to take the responsibility of approving those payments w/o Rupert's say so. I just hope the investigation here in the US finds some good dirt to charge them with-ding dong the witch is dead!!
Murdock and his son are absolute criminals
Why do not they go to Jail? is UK legal system as corrupt as US?