News Corp

UK report says News Corp showed willful blindness on hacking

(Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp showed "willful blindness" about the scale of phone-hacking at its News of the World tabloid, for which Murdoch and his son James should take responsibility, a British parliamentary report said on Tuesday.
The long-awaited report by a committee of lawmakers said Rupert Murdoch was not fit to run a major international company, which had shown "huge failings" of corporate governance, and it raised questions about James Murdoch's competence.

"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.

"Their instinct throughout, until it was too late, was to cover up rather than seek out wrongdoing and discipline the perpetrators," the lawmakers said in an 85 page report.

"Even if there were a 'don't ask, don't tell' culture at News International, the whole affair demonstrates huge failings of corporate governance," they concluded.

(Reporting by Kate Holton and Georgina Prodhan; editing by Paul Hoskins)