Did Rupert Murdoch survive a close shave in Tuesday's hacking hearings?
Maybe, but in testimony before the British Parliament, he came off as a spent mogul.
"He seemed to me to be showing his age," observed Sarah Ellison, author of "War at the Wall Street Journal," a riveting account of Murdoch's takeover of the business newspaper. "It was obvious to everyone -- the excruciating pauses. If he gained anything, it was sympathy."
In a nearly three-hour appearance with his son James at a Parliamentary committee hearing into the phone-hacking scandal, Murdoch's responses proved to be revealing of the limited grasp he has over his own organization.
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If his testimony is to be believed, News Corp. employees neglected to let on to their boss that they made mammoth financial settlements to victims of News of the World phone hacking -- the very misdeeds at the center of the scandal that is now is rocking Murdoch's empire, not to mention the bedrock institutions of British civic life.
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Of course, a well-known sign of organizational leadership failure is that the employees are loathe to bring unpleasant news to boss' attention.
Weekly or monthly, Murdoch testified, he would phone his top editors at the News of the World and other News Corp. papers to casually inquire about what was happening. Murdoch was asked by one his inquisitors Tuesday whether he was ever told by the editor of News of The World of a million-pound payoff in the phone-hacking scandal.
No, Murdoch answered. His editors, he said, "might say we have a great story exposing X or Y," but said he was never delivered news of any settlements.
Outside of his organization, meanwhile, top British political figures, while eager to court Murdoch's power, were reluctant to be seen associating with him.
Successive prime ministers, for example, required Murdoch to use the backdoor to, in effect, sneak into 10 Downing, the British White House.
Just days after his election in May 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron invited Murdoch to drop by, so the conservative party leader could thank the media mogul over tea for his endorsements.
Why had Murdoch entered through the backdoor, one of his inquisitors wondered?
“I was asked; I just did what I was told,” Murdoch squirmed.
After briefly speculating -- perhaps it was to avoid photographers at the front door? -- he declared, “that’s the Prime Minister’s choice. I was asked, would I please come in through the back door.”
It seems that both Murdoch and Cameron were mutually intent on thwarting hard evidence of their cozy arrangement.
Murdoch volunteered that he’d also frequently visited Gordon Brown, Cameron’s predecessor. “Though the backdoor?” his inquisitor asked. Murdoch replied: “Many times.”
Ironically, the phone-hacking scandal now haunts not only Murdoch, but also Brown and Cameron, though in dramatically different ways.
