LONDON — Rupert Murdoch and his son James confronted an angry parliamentary committee on Tuesday, insisting they did not know the scope of phone hacking and other illegal newsgathering at their News of the World tabloid and apologizing for being the source of one of the worst crises in the history of British media.
The hearing was dramatically interrupted at one point when a man in a plaid shirt walked up to the witness table, yelled “You are a greedy billionaire,” and tried to shove a shaving-cream pie in the face of the 80-year-old Rupert Murdoch. The media baron’s 42-year old wife, Wendi Deng, leapt from her chair and belted the attacker, who was later identified as Jonnie Marbles, a comedian and activist.
An incident during the hearings of James and Rupert Murdoch temporarily stopped the proceedings.
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Murdoch repeatedly pounded his hand on a table as he gave testimony, but nevertheless appeared removed from day-to-day details of the scandal and unprepared for detailed questioning.
Appearing for the first time in such a forum, the Australian-born baron of the conservative press strained at times to hear questions and often turned to his son, who oversees the company’s British operations, to field them for him. When pressed to answer himself, he offered candid, unedited responses.
“There were people in the company which were apparently guilty, and we have to find them and we have to deal with them appropriately,” Murdoch conceded at one point. At the same time, he said he did not consider himself ultimately responsible. And both he and James Murdoch, 38, said they did not think top executives at News of the World were aware of the hacking when it was taking place.
The elder Murdoch answered with a dismissive “no” when one lawmaker asked whether he would consider resigning.
“I feel that people I trusted — I’m not saying who, but I know at what level — let me down,” he said. “And I think they behaved disgracefully. They betrayed the company, and me, and they should pay.
“Frankly, I’m the best person to clean this up.”
Yet both father and son mounted a rigorous defense of the company’s response to the phone hacking of thousands of British citizens, including members of the royal family, by the now-shuttered News of the World.
Rupert Murdoch, in particular, backed two top News Corp. executives who have resigned in light of the scandal, Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks. Brooks — the former editor of News of the World and chief executive of News Corp.’s British operations until last Friday — was arrested Sunday and released on bail. She appeared before the committee on culture, media and sport after the Murdochs, who testified for three hours although they had been scheduled for only one.
In her testimony, Brooks denied ever paying a bribe to a police officer or authorizing such a payment. “In my experience of dealing with the police, the information they give newspapers comes free of charge,” she said.
In response to questions, she said, “Things went badly at the News of the World, and we’re tryng to set it right.”
In addition to bringing down power players in Britain’s media elite, the revelations of rampant hacking have plunged Prime Minister David Cameron into a political crisis over his ties to tainted News Corp. figures.
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