Jack Shafer, Reuters OpEd: "Rupert Murdoch’s escape act"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Rupert Murdoch’s escape act

http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2012/05/01/rupert-murdochs-escape-act/

The publication today of Parliament’s 121-page report (pdf) on phone hacking has the British press all but publishing obituaries for Rupert Murdoch. The report damns him for turning “a blind eye” to the scandal of phone hacking at his companies, News Corporation and New International.

Murdoch is not “a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company,” the report concludes, leveling a hammer to the media baron’s head. As the Telegraph interprets this finding, BSkyB, the UK satellite broadcaster that Murdoch owns 39.1 percent of, is “vulnerable” to a challenge from the regulators at Ofcom. If the regulators applied their “fit and proper” test to BSkyB, they could cancel its broadcasting license, order News Corp. to reduce its holdings in the broadcaster and oust Rupert’s son James Murdoch from its board of directors. The BBC seconded the Telegraph‘s take, and the Telegraph and the Guardian speculate that the report will echo in the United States, triggering criminal prosecutions and unending damage to Murdoch’s corporate reputation here.

Murdoch’s corporate counterattack today states that News Corp. has “already confronted and … acted on the failings documented in the Report,” insisting that the company has righted all the wrongs. In a memo to his 50,000 employees, Murdoch remained defiant, minimizing corporate wrongdoing and maximizing the corrective measures his company has taken.

Even more bad news for Murdoch will arrive when the Leveson Inquiry concludes its investigation and issues recommendation for future press regulation.

[DCKit]

1. "We're no longer acting illegally (yeah, right), so there's no basis for legal action."

Sorry Rupert, that's not how it works.

[malaise]

2. Best line

The BBC seconded the Telegraph‘s take, and the Telegraph and the Guardian speculate that the report will echo in the United States, triggering criminal prosecutions and unending damage to Murdoch’s corporate reputation here.