At one point in the hearings, Watson characterized Murdoch’s son James, executive chairman of News International, as “a mafia boss.”
Watson has been called Murdoch’s “tormentor in chief” by the British press. News Corp said the committee report contained some “hard truths” but that many comments were “unjustified and highly partisan.” The book comes as the scandal continues to rivet the UK, where on May 1 a parliamentary committee - including Watson - concluded the 81-year old Murdoch was “not a fit person” to lead a global media firm. “Fear allowed the phone hacking scandal to happen - fear of public humiliation for an indiscretion, fear of not winning that glowing endorsement,” the book states. “Incompetence alone cannot explain all of these failures,” the authors write, citing the failure of Scotland Yard, most UK media and many top politicians for failing to prevent or even adequately probe the phone hacking scandal that surfaced in 2009. True to its nod to the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, the book is a suspenseful tale of the ongoing phone hacking scandal in Britain from one of its key players: Tom Watson, a Labour Party member of Parliament and one the fiercest critics of Murdoch’s media empire, who co-authored the book with The Independent’s Martin Hickman.Īs its subtitle suggests, it also offers passionate and aggrieved claims about the power that Murdoch and News International, the publisher of News Corp’s British titles, gained in recent years and about how they sought to protect that power with an all-embracing apparatus of intimidation. NEW YORK, May 14 (Reuters) - “Dial M For Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain” is among the more provocatively titled books about Rupert Murdoch, the controversial head of global news conglomerate News Corp, owner of FOX News, the Wall Street Journal and other media brands.
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