A tumultuous fortnight for News International looks set to escalate today when Rupert and James Murdoch face questions from MP’s over the seeming endemic hacking by the now defunct News of the World.
The Committee, chaired by John Whittingdale, is expected to be at its most probing and voracious, echoing the sentiment of the public.
First of all to be subjected to the inquiries will be the Murdoch’s.
They will take their seats in the Wilson Room of Portcullis House amidst a maelstrom of controversy, resignations and most recently the death of a potential witness.
Both will seek to remedy the assertion that James tried to bury the scandal with out of court payments such as the £700,000 paid to former FA chief executive, Gordon Taylor.
He has already in an interview admitted to making this particular payment without knowing the full context of the hacking itself. How many more of these payments did James Murdoch authorise? One would suspect more and doubts must therefore arise regarding the heir’s future at NI.
The big question, though, is how much of the illegal and morally inept ethics was Rupert himself aware of?
The octogenarian is largely based in the US these days and has left the running of the UK side of the business to his son and Brooks. The committee would be wise to question if his finger was on the toxic pulse of the NOTW.
Closing his cherished Sunday would have hurt Murdoch, a professed newspaper man, but was it a small price to pay to try to plug the wave of indifference coming his way?
It will also be interesting to see what tone the proprietor adopts: the defiant one seen in a recent Wall Street Journal interview or that reported when he met the Dowlers.
An hour later Rebekah Brooks will face the same culture, media and sport committee but the former editor of the Sunday paper could mostly dodge interrogation after her arrest by police on Friday and impending criminal investigation.
She should surely, though, face questions about the atmosphere that emanated under her stewardship at NI and continued to fester with Andy Coulson at the helm.
Could this be the end of the world, again?
