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Subscribe to RSSA panel of British lawmakers have declared media mogul Rupert Murdoch 'not a fit person' to run a major international company. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.
Updated at 11:24 a.m. ET: LONDON -- Rupert Murdoch is unfit to run a major international company, British lawmakers said on Tuesday, finding him responsible for a culture of illegal phone hacking that has convulsed his News Corporation media empire.
Pulling few punches, members of the House of Common listed failings of the 81-year-old News Corp chief, his son James and a company they said had showed "willful blindness" about the scale of hacking that existed at the company's News of the World tabloid.
The cross-party parliamentary committee, which approved the report by a majority of six to four, also scolded News Corp's British newspaper arm for misleading the British parliament during its five year investigation into the hacking of the phones of celebrities, murder victims, politicians and soldiers.
But it split along party lines, with members from Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party voting against the final conclusions of the report, saying they did not agree with its view on Murdoch's fitness to run a company.
Carl Court / AFP - Getty Images
Opposition Labour member of parliament Tom Watson, center, speaks during the launch of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee report on Phone-Hacking.
Cameron, who has acknowledged that Britain's political elite had been in thrall to the Murdochs for years, is facing criticism ahead of local elections this week that he was too close to the media tycoon.
The report, published only a week after Rupert Murdoch gave evidence at a separate public inquiry into UK media ethics, said there had been huge failures in corporate governance which raised questions about the competence of Rupert's 39-year-old son, James.
"News International and its parent News Corporation exhibited willful blindness, for which the companies' directors -including Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch - should ultimately take responsibility," it said.
Olivia Harris / Reuters
The report says News Corp's British subsidiary misled Parliament about the scale of phone hacking at its News of the World tabloid.
It provides a devastating account of how employees of News Corp's UK arm became involved in illegal activity and how its executives then attempted to cover up the wrongdoing. Corporately, the firm's "instinct throughout, until it was too late, was to cover up rather than seek out wrongdoing," it said.
"We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company," it wrote.
As so often in scandals, the attempted cover-up attracted the most criticism. The committee noted that, by June 2008, the chief executive of England's Professional Footballers Association, Gordon Taylor, had received a payment from News Corp's UK arm worth more than $1 million. The report says, this cash "was paid over a story which was never actually published and was clearly done to buy silence".
The committee said it could not "come to a definitive conclusion" as to what James Murdoch knew when he agreed this payment. But it said it was "astonished" that James Murdoch did not seek more information before authorising this "not inconsequential" sum of money. It concludes that, for James Murdoch, "this clearly raises questions of competence".
Murdoch: Hacking scandal cost 'hundreds of millions'
The hacking scandal has not affected most of Murdoch's global media empire, which includes the Wall Street Journal, 20th Century Fox and pay-TV operations around the world.
But it could persuade shareholders of News Corp that Australian-born Rupert Murdoch should step back from the helm of his $50 billion media empire.
Rupert and James Murdoch are severely criticized after investigations into phone-hacking allegations - and three of their senior executives are accused of misleading parliament. ITN's Juliet Bremner reports.
It has already forced James Murdoch to sever almost all his ties with Britain, although he still holds a directorship of Britain's biggest satellite TV firm BSkyB, which News Corp had sought to take over before the scandal.
British media regulator Ofcom is investigating whether BSkyB, which is 39 percent owned by News Corp, is a "fit and proper" owner of a broadcast license, which entails an examination of the company's officers and shareholders.
James Murdoch recently stepped down as chairman of BSkyB in response to the scrutiny the broadcaster is facing as a result of the hacking scandal. The regulator said on Tuesday it was reading the parliamentary report with interest.
The impact of the report may also be diminished by the fact it was split largely along party political lines.
"None of us were able to support the report and we all voted against it," Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch said, referring to her party members. "It will be correctly seen as a partisan report and we've lost a very great deal of its credibility, which is an enormous shame."
Mensch said she would have supported the report if the reference to Rupert Murdoch being unfit to run a major international company had been removed. She said she supported the report's findings that three senior executives at News Corp's UK arm had misled parliament.
James Murdoch was back at the Leveson inquiry, where he claimed he didn't know about phone-hacking at News Corp's U.K. unit, and didn't remember being told about it. ITV's Juliet Bremner reports.
Murdoch, who took London by storm in the 1960s before moving to New York on his quest to become the world's most powerful media tycoon, has apologized for the scandal.
He told a judicial inquiry into press ethics last week that senior staff at his British newspaper publisher had hidden the hacking scandal, saying he had been betrayed by minions.
News Corp said in a statement it was carefully reviewing the report, adding that it "fully acknowledges significant wrongdoing at News of the World and apologizes to everyone whose privacy was invaded".
Rupert Murdoch tells UK phone-hack inquiry: 'I'm not good at holding my tongue'
Media regulator Ofcom will take the report's findings into consideration in its continuing assessment of whether BSkyB's owners and directors are "fit and proper" persons to hold a broadcast license.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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every time i read the header i want to laugh.a bunch of leeches who get paid by others basically doing nothing and pontificate to other people about what to do. its amazing to me after all these years they still talk. murdock is worth five houses of these so called mps.in america it would be the yard gnome harry reid and the botox queen nacy pelosi. both try to pontifacate about things that only the tass american media shows on air and cares about. the rest of america tunes them out, while laughing at the jokes!
There is no way Rupert Murdoch was unaware of the purpose of the of the $1,000,000 hush money payment. Anyone as powerful and controlling as R.M. would be fully aware of the crimes in this scandal. To label him incompetent is ludicrous and merely a "cop-out" to his political clout. Unfortunately, in our world billionaires and multimillionaires rarely if ever are indicted or go to jail. Imprisonment is for the poor. How much "justice" can you afford?
Our splendid Australian racist Murdoch will sell up NI, and put all the cash into Fox News. Just like he did with Blair and Cameron, he will use Fox to terrorize every US politician that does not kiss his ring. If you think that if Obama loses, partly because Fox has instructions from Rupert to throw venom 24-hours a day you are delusional. He will do just the same thing to a Republican President, because he loves power; he used the gutter press in Britain to reduce half the country to drooling lower primates and he is well on his way to doing the same thing over here.
Murdoch is a fine example that being filthy rich .. isn't enough... They have to be "pure evil"! It SOBs like this jerk that has made this world one hell of a tougher place to live!
Too bad that you can go to jail for being a big jerk and one famous "Evil doers" of the world said. Doesn't this guy own Fox News!!! That explains why Fox News has never had facts get in the way of a story! The sespool of mankind!
Rupert Murdoch said on INSIDE EDITION back in the mid 1980's to Bill O'Reilley when he hosted that program, that he'd make the news, Fabricate the news if need be, that was over 30 years ago and so far he's spun lies, after lies, just like his FOX NEWS Network and the idiots that work at that FOX News network, the news anchors that work there for murdoch are nothing more than leeches clinging to murdochs money he pays them,, to go on air and spin the lies he wants them to spin, Hannity, Coulter, O'reilley, and the rest of that ignorant bunch ! FOX YOU SUCK !!!
hell has a special place all set out for Rupert the rednosed LIAR!
Give Fox news 3 minutes they'll find a way to blame the Democrats or better yet, president Obama for Murdoch's demise.
What do UK, or any, lawmakers know about someone being fit to run a company? Primarily a bunch of egotistical lawyers looking for someone to pay attention. Most have never had a real job.
They were talking "fit" in the moral sense, a concept obviously foreign to you.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PLZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, Stick a sock in it ~ MH
Can't wait for the day when his broadcast license gets yanked!
How bout we just beat the miserable old liar with a stick? Foreign nationals should NOT be able to spew their propaganda on American news networks. That's dead wrong. I don't care what the politics is, but our news should Not be run by Chinese, Russians, Arabs, or Brits.
ABSATIVAFRIGGINLUTELY!
Rupert Murdoch found dead with his head up Rush Limbaugh's fat ass.
Tis but a dream, unfortunately!
"we've lost a very great deal of its credibility"
Only the conservative side, the one that was in bed with Murdoch has lost credibility. The side that voted him down have kept their credibility, only you losers lost yours and you didn't have much left to begin with.
Just like the Conservatives here, keep trying to protect the rich and you are history.
Dah Doktorz Rx is: Export Murdoch!
A Major Tea Party player - big surprise! Open your eyes folks cause this is what the Republicans are now made of.
The only ones who don't know that he is unfit to run a news organization are his zombie followers.
can I get an AMEN!
What a bunch of fools on this blog! We've all been DIC'd since 2006! Democrats In Charge! I'd take Murdoch over the clown we have in the White House in a New York minute!
Federal employment increased dramatically during Bush , declined during Obama.
Losing jobs at end of Bush, SLOWLY gaining Obama.
Tax breaks to companies that export jobs to a competing COMMUNIST Nation (China), via your (R) buds.
Today's right wing, would make Teddy Roosevelt sick.
Not a Obama fan, but your history is wrong. If anything . Obama strayed too far right.
You could go to Fox's racial immigration best seller. But then Reagan & Simpson had the first amnesty backed by a promise to enforce restrictions on employer to not hire illegals. How well did that work???
Yur pic makes you out to be a JAP! Better change it so we don't think you are TOJO II!
"Not Fit to Run A Company"?
Is that why Foxnews so focked up?
I mean I personally love gorgeuous ladies one after another... But, having to listen to BS all day long is too much...
Wear earplugs.
is Fox News reporting any of this? I have to read about it here?
Sorry, I just don't understand your socialist ways of reporting that the man that created and built the little empire is NOT fit to run it. What kind of trash are you trying to put over on the people? Remember, the BRITISH lost the war even though at one time the sun NEVER set on it. And now you yokels are trying to push a muslem over on us Americans for President.
Oh plz, sit down and shut the F**K UP Freddy boy!
Murdoch needs to be in jail, not running anything.
It's always funny to hear politicians decrying the "ethical standards" of non-politicians.
Rupert Murcoch has no ethics or morals. DirectTV under Murdoch is the largest purveyor of porn in America. They used to hide those channels up in the 500s, but now they have porn offerings right next to the pay per view kids movies, complete with disgusting descriptions.
His conservative wing nut pastor, Rick Warren, tried to get him to stop delivering porn on DirectTV, but Rupert was making too much money from it. Rupert started out by publishing cheap tabloid newspapers with topless girls on page 3.
So much for conservative, family values.
Americans are so gutless compared tah the Brits, that I wanna reverse emigrate! Thanks Be to God, that they have the cajones' to speak and act with conviction and honesty. Murdoch should be expelled from the US as an "undesirable alien". He has proven his unfitness to be in the U.S. on any basis. Faux News has literally destroyed American's love for liberty, justice and eqananimous handling of domestic and foreign affairs.
He is the Prophet of the Anti-Christ prophesied in Rev. 13!
If Murdock is "Unfit to run a business" then how do we justify that "OBama is fit to run our counrty?". Really.
...from out of nowhere, with no experience, little known about him, and his college records and other private info better kept than nuclear secrets.
We elected, and reelected, OBama in an attempt to assuage some collective guilt about blacks. Admit it. I'd never chose a doctor or even a mechanic that way. Would you? Dumb move for us.
Get off Murdock's back. More people like him might expose the depth of the corruption and /or ineptitude of all politicians... everywhere.