Murdoch and Son Testify before British Parliamentary Committee

Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch, and his son James testified before a parliamentary committee Tuesday. They apologized for the phone hacking scandal at papers they owned. But they denied responsibility. Anchor Lisa Mullins gets details from journalist Mary Ann Sieghart.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. There was not a trial but it might have felt like one to media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son James. The Murdoch’s appeared before the British parliamentary Committee today. Both denied responsibility for the phone hacking scandal at the now shuttered, News of the World newspaper. Here’s a bit of what they had to say today. We begin with James, a senior executive in the Murdoch media empire.

James Murdoch (Recorded): Would like to say as well just how sorry I am and how sorry we are, of to particularly the victims of illegal voice mail interceptions and to their families. It’s a matter of great regret mine, my father’s and everyone at News Corporation and these are standards, these, these actions do not live up to the standards that our company aspires to everywhere  around the world and it is our determination to both put things right, make sure these things don’t happen again and to be the company that I know, we’ve always aspired to be. As for my comments Mr. Chairman and my statement which I believe was around the closure of the News of the World newspaper.

Rupert Murdoch (Recorded): Before we get to that I would just like to say one sentence. This is the most humble day of my life.

Mullins: That’s Rupert Murdoch there saying that this is his most humble day of his life. Before him you heard his son James saying, how sorry he is from what has transpired. Journalist Mary Ann Sieghart, was watching the hearing today. Mary Ann, now your columnist for The Independent., we want to talk to you about your previous experience with the Times of London owned by the Murdoch empire. First though, the message that James and Rupert Murdoch had today, the apologies, the humility we just heard expressed. What for you is the takeaway of what was said before this committee today.

Mary Ann Sieghart : Well you could see the work of the PR company Adelman there, couldn’t you? They are not the sort of men that normally come full of humility and apology. But, I guess that’s what they were told they had to say right at the beginning. Overall the most stricking thing about it was, how little they were prepared to admit that they knew about what had been going on in their company. The sentence that James Murdoch used perhaps 20 or 30 times was, I have no knowledge of that or I had no knowledge of that and you think well, hang on a minute, you were running the company, you were chief executive. Rupert Murdoch is Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation. He claimed for instance that he had no real contact with, The News of the World which was the newspaper which had been using this phone hacking. He said, oh I only called the editor of The News of the World perhaps once a month. Well, within minutes appears Morgan who had been editor of The News of the World was tweeting that he used to talk to Rupert Murdoch every week when he was editing the paper. So, I think there’s a certain amount of hear no evil see no evil in terms of their strategy, how credible that is well, I found it hard to believe.

Mullins: Well let’s, let’s look at your own experience with the Murdoch’s, you used to work for the Times of London as we said as an assistant editor and a columnist. Did their depiction of not only how often you were talked upper ranks but the entire depiction of life at their papers and their standards we heard, son James talk a little while ago, did those depict accurately your life and jive with your experiences.

Sieghart: They did jive with my experiences with the Times, but the Times is a very, very different newspaper from the News of the World and indeed the Sun. At the times we had , as far as I was aware that high standards of probity and integrity and Rupert Murdoch, I mean I wrote  the editorials for the times, political editorials for many years and he never told me what I had to write. But I think he, you know, he’s admitted that The Sun and The News of the World, he has much more influence. He does tell the editors what he wants them to say. It’s very different.

Mullins: Let me get back to the hearings now, Rupert Murdoch denied responsibility as you heard for the crimes committed for the illegal interceptions of voice mail messages for bribing policemen. Here’s one of his answers in response to a question from one of the committee members Jim Sheridan.

Jim Sheridan (Recorded): Mr. Murdoch do you accept that ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco?

Rupert Murdoch (Recorded): No.

Jim Sheridan (Recorded): You’re not responsible, not responsible.

Rupert Murdoch (Recorded): The people that I trusted to run it, and then maybe the people they trusted.

Mullins: So, what happens once he denies having any responsibilities, you said. One determinant is passing the buck or not. But, what happens now in terms of who is proving who culpable?

Sieghart: Well I mean unless there’s an email trail leading to the desk of Rupert Murdoch, it’s going to be hard for police to charge him with any offence. I suspect that maybe email trails leading to the desk of, executives just below him will see.

Mullins: There were many moments of drama today. But, one of them was particularly noteworthy, this is  when one of the protestor who happened to work his way into the committee room, rushed at Mr. Murdoch. What happened then?

Sieghart: Well it was the most extraordinary sight. I think what he had done was sprayed some shaving foam onto a paper plate to create a sort of custard pie that clowns use on each other. Rushed towards Rupert Murdoch, was intercepted by Wendy Deng Rupert’s wife and clocked him one over the head and eventually he was bundled out by the police put in handcuffs arrested. But I mean it’s pretty embarrassing frankly for the House of Commons, that you know, is pretty strict security. It’s very embarrassing for the House of Commons that he should have be allowed to have got into the committee room with a paper plate and a can of shaving foam.

Mullins: Yeah, and it looked like the, the alleged perpetrator kind of got hit by shaving cream than Rupert Murdoch. But he went on, Rupert Murdoch answered more questions after that. But let me ask you in terms of the questions that are being asked of him, how did he root his son to compose himself and how did he come off before the committee and those watching.

Sieghart: But the extraordinary thing is, he is a man that has been feared by much of the western world certainly here in the UK as the most powerful man in the country outside the Prime Minister and yet he came across as a doggedly old man, he knew very little about what was going on in his company who answered lots of questions with lots of pause and then a monosyllabic yes or no and very, very unimpressive and it was hard to tell whether he was putting this on perhaps in order to court sympathy or whether he is generally really quite as old as his age and  in which case why he is Chairman and  Chief Executive of a, of a multi-billion dollar company.

Mullins: And I wonder in closing if you could give us the bigger picture on, on all the trends aspiring here. Because it’s more than the media, the media story. It’s more than a story about journalistic ethics. We had earlier in the day two senior officers appearing before a different parliamentary committees. We had talked handling possibly embroiling the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Can you bring together the various facets of this investigation?

Sieghart: Yes it’s much more than a media story. Our Prime Minister David Cameron employed as his communications director, the man who was the editor of the News of the World when phone hacking was first uncovered. He resigned from editor of News of the World because of the phone hacking. But he was then employed by David Cameron and a lot of people our now questioning David Cameron judgement about this. Now the head, the most senior policeman in the country the head of the Metropolitan’s police employed Andy deputy. That was the deputy editor of th News of the World to give him advice on communications. And then the Metropolitan Police which he was in charge of failed to investigate properly the phone hacking of the News of the World. So, this scandal has embroiled not just the media but the government part of the government and the most senior echeolens of the police

Mullins: Do you think there is a need for the public watching this especially in Britain to see News Corp spot. I mean is there anything that’s a part of the national.

Sieghart: Yes, I think so. I think a lot of poeple felt that here was a man who welded an enormous amount of power , but was utterly unaccountable for it and I think it was satisfying at last to see him being held accountable for what he has or hasn’t done.

Mullins: That’s Mary Ann Sieghart, assistant editor for the Times of London.

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