News Corp. CEO and chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch are testifying in front of a British Parliamentary committee about the phone-hacking scandal his now-closed tabloid, The News of the World, is embroiled in. While James Murdoch, who is the deputy COO of News Corp. and chairman of the company's British newspaper division, News International, was testifying, his 80-year-old father interrupted him, "I wanted to say one sentence: This is the most humble day of my life."
According to Bloomberg News' sources, some News Corp. executives were concerned about Rupert Murdoch's practice session before this hearing and rumors were floated that News Corp. COO Chase Carey might be in line to replace Murdoch. News Corp. has lost about $8 billion in market value since the scandal started.
The Financial Times, Guardian, NY Times and Wall Street Journal are liveblogging the hearing. From the Times' Lede blog:
In response to questions from Tom Watson, a Labour Party member of Parliament, Rupert Murdoch appears to struggle to answer clearly. He seemed to move to a prepared statement that he is the chief executive of a company with 53,000 employees and so cannot by expected to know what all of them are doing. As he spoke, he slapped the table in front of him, and seemed to be struggling to recall prepared remarks.
As Mr. Watson continued to question the elder Mr. Murdoch, his son tried to answer more than once, but Mr. Watson said that he wanted answers from the News Corporation founder first. Mr. Murdoch, who is 80, appeared to have difficulty hearing the questions at some points, and paused before answering several times.
From the WSJ:
James speaking for Rupert now on Rupert's professed ignorance of earlier out-of-court settlement in the case, with James saying it's "below the approval thresholds that would have to go to my father as chairman and chief executive of a global company."
Rupert says he was "absolutely shocked, appalled and ashamed when I heard about the Milly Dowler case two weeks ago."
