It was a long time coming, but inevitable six months ago. James Murdoch has stepped down as chair of News International, signalling the Fall of the House of Murdoch as the dynastic succession to Rupert's News Corp empire is finished. The official statement - which is probably worth no more than a host of News Corp press statements which have either turned out to be highly misleading in the past (some outright lies indeed)
News Corporation today announced that, following his relocation to the company's headquarters in New York, James Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer, has relinquished his position as executive chairman of News International, its UK publishing unit. Tom Mockridge, chief executive officer of News International, will continue in his post and will report to News Corporation president and COO Chase Carey.
"We are all grateful for James' leadership at News International and across Europe and Asia, where he has made lasting contributions to the group's strategy in paid digital content and its efforts to improve and enhance governance programs," said Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer, News Corporation. "He has demonstrated leadership and continues to create great value at Star TV, Sky Deutschland, Sky Italia, and BSkyB. Now that he has moved to New York, James will continue to assume a variety of essential corporate leadership mandates, with particular focus on important pay-TV businesses and broader international operations."
"I deeply appreciate the dedication of my many talented colleagues at News International who work tirelessly to inform the public and am confident about the tremendous momentum we have achieved under the leadership of my father and Tom Mockridge," said James Murdoch. "With the successful launch of the Sun on Sunday and new business practices in place across all titles, News International is now in a strong position to build on its successes in the future. As deputy chief operating Officer, I look forward to expanding my commitment to News Corporation's international television businesses and other key initiatives across the company."
More as I get it.
OK, this is all on the hoof. Yes James resigned from other subsidiary boards several months ago as I detailed in another diary. But this is the biggie: NI was bidding for BSkyB which he also chairs - expect a resignation there too.
More news in - still involved in BSkyB - but again this is slow withdrawal. Expect more retreats soon
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Wednesday's move sees him give up responsibility for News Corp's crisis-hit British newspaper operation as he completes his relocation to New York.
The man once seen as his father Rupert Murdoch's automatic heir at the top of News Corp retains existing responsibility for "global television", overseeing busineses including the company's 39% stake in BSkyB, Sky-branded pay-TV companies in Europe and Star in Asia – and only gains the opportunity to become involved with the company's US Fox television operation as he settles in across the Atlantic.
James Murdoch's managerial move away from News International explains why he was not in London to help oversee the launch of the Sun's Sunday edition, which has been personally supervised by his father.
Friends say he has been eager to leave the UK and drop responsibility for the Wapping newspapers for several months as the phone hacking scandal enveloped the London outpost of the organisation.
And there are rumours of a major arrest in the pipeline.. just sayin'
IMPORTANT ASIDE: I've been in touch with Alastair Morgan, whose brother Daniel was brutally murdered in South London in 1988, by suspects with close connection to the NoW hacking team. These same individuals were sponsored by NoW to harass and survey the police detectives re-examining the case in 2002. Ceebs had a diary yesterday about it, Murdoch and Murder.
Tom Watson is going to make an important statement at 4pm BST (11 am EST) about Daniel Morgan's murder. I expect, under Parliamentary privilege, he might make some explosive revelations.
6:36 AM PT: You'll probably find better analysis of this breaking news in the comments rather than my constant updates
6:38 AM PT: Just had to share this tweet from Owen Jones
James Murdoch gone. If this was Lord of the Rings, that's Saruman down. Still Sauron to go
6:44 AM PT: And another keeper
Don't panic everyone. In a few short weeks he'll be relaunched as James Murdoch on Sunday.
7:07 AM PT: And another
James Murdoch has now been lent to Rebekah Brooks, having reached the end of his working life.
A reference to the police horse the Met loaned to Rebekah, which was returned in poor condition.
7:29 AM PT: Off to appear on Sky News about this - UK viewers wish me luck
9:27 AM PT: About to appear on CNN international, and apparently will be interviewed for Wolf Blitzer's situation room too
2:20 PM PT: CNN international interview
http://edition.cnn.com/...
2:39 PM PT: Since the Guardian, with help from the NYT, has been the main force exposing this, let me share their brilliant new video
2:49 PM PT: And this is what the leading commentator for the Conservative Daily Telegraph is now saying
Until now, it is only the lesser people who have carried the can for the culture of criminality that flourished inside News International, with the buck stopping with editors such as Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. The time has come to look higher up – and I am not thinking of hapless James Murdoch, who belatedly resigned as the chairman of News International yesterday afternoon.
Rupert Murdoch, the company’s founder, insists that he never had any knowledge of wrongdoing, and no doubt that is true. But he was the man at the top. He took a very keen interest in the way his British newspapers were run (a newspaperman to his fingertips, last weekend he could be seen hard at work in the newsroom as the Sun on Sunday was launched) and it was he, and nobody else, who set the culture.
We learn more about this culture practically every day. It was a culture of bullying and intimidation, where facts were distorted and lies told. It was a culture which merged the boundaries between police, media and the political class. Though brilliant in many ways, it also did a great deal to debase and even to destroy our public life. Now Rupert Murdoch, an American citizen of Australian heritage, is promoting the break-up of Britain through an alliance with Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (they met yesterday).
Murdoch’s culture, we now know for a fact, included the criminal culture at the News of the World. We have also heard the corruption allegations from Sue Akers concerning the Sun. Of course nothing has been proved, but if even half of what she says turns out to be true, then it is time to ask whether Rupert Murdoch is a fit and proper person to run not just a newspaper, but any British public company.
As I've discovered through writing my book, Rupert set the culture. In the US he did this with the Summer of Sam scandal of 'celebrity killer' in his New York Post in the 1970s. Hackgate is the logical extension of his modus operandi.
3:40 PM PT: One last comment about the Daniel Morgan Murder, and the relationship between the former prime suspect and our prime minister
the Marunchak business takes us deep down into a bloody gutter.
Rees, having been investigated several times for Daniel Morgan's murder, the last one scuppered by NoW intervention, was rehired by Coulson after prison
The same Coulson who was media supremo at No 10, with security clearance to read the most sensitive secrets of state
It beggars belief. The corruption rose from the gutter to the heights of the political establishment.
4:07 PM PT: OK. It wasn't the last comment. One more to go as I wrote on David Allen's excellent New Statesman blog about the Daniel Morgan murder
As I’ve said recently, the News International Scandal (and it’s bigger than hackgate or bribegate) is the British equivalent to the Dreyfus affair.
Like Watergate, it began with a minor crime that eventually exposed the rest of an iceberg. Unlike Watergate or Poulson, where the press was pretty united in condemnation, we not only have politicians compromised by this scandal, nor just the police, but the press as well, with a large contingent from Littlejohn and Kavanagh trying to make the Leveson the scandal, to James Delingpole who calls it merely a ‘vendetta by the BBC and Guardian’..
This is a cultural war, much like Dreyfus was. And surprising figures from all spectrums of politics (e.g. Peter Oborne today) going Rupert, J’Accuse!
4:57 PM PT: