James Murdoch has resigned from the boards of the publishing units within News Corp's British newspaper arm, which used to include the now-defunct News of the World tabloid at the centre of the phone hacking scandal, regulatory filings show. Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert and deputy chief operating officer of News Corp, remains chairman of News International, the News Corp unit that houses its British newspapers, and a member of the Times editorial board.
The News International unit has been damaged this year by the revelation that people working for the popular Sunday tabloid hacked into the phones of thousands to generate news. Slow-burning investigations into the matter became front-page national news when it was revealed in July that one of the victims was missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, who appeared to have been picking up voicemails but was later found murdered.
Ex-News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks resigned as chief executive of News International the following week, and was replaced by Tom Mockridge, the former head of News Corp-owned Sky Italia, on July 15. "Following the appointment of Tom Mockridge as CEO of News International, in September James Murdoch stepped down from the boards of a number of News International subsidiary companies including News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Times Newspapers Ltd (TNL)," News International said in a statement.
Mockridge replaced Murdoch on the two company boards. News Corp shares were down 1.6 percent at $16.14 at 1708 GMT, broadly in line with the S&P media index. Harriet Harman, Britain's shadow minister for culture, media and sports from the opposition Labour party, said Murdoch should explain himself.