Daily News Editor-In-Chief Colin Myler May Be Called Before Parliament For Punishment

Does Colin Myler still get to run the Daily News now?

Three former News International executives accused of lying to parliament have been referred by MPs to a Commons committee that has the power to recommend punishment.

Ex-News of the World editor Colin Myler, the paper's former legal manager Tom Crone and one-time News International chairman Les Hinton were accused of misleading the culture, media and sport committee during its investigation into phone hacking.

All three deny giving misleading testimony and further action will now be decided upon by the standards and privileges committee after MPs passed a Commons motion on Tuesday afternoon.

Therese Coffey, a Conservative member of the culture committee said: "We are the parliament of the people, we should not be lied to."

Labour MP Chris Bryant said parliament should consider fining or even imprisoning the men.

"I simply think we were hoodwinked, indeed for a long period politicians were so nervous and frightened of what the press would say about us we effectively put the hoodwinks on ourselves," he said.

"It is time we asserted the freedom of parliament, the rights of parliament … if parliament is lied to we can not do our job on behalf of our constituents."

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, the chair of the culture committee, John Whittingdale said: "The conclusions we've reached have serious repercussions. I'm not sure what they are but these are serious matters.

The vote to refer the three men to the standards committee was supported by both the government and Labour front benches.

Parliament hasn't fined anybody since 1666.

The last non-member of Parliament called to apologize before Parliament was in 1957.

And the last time Parliament imprisoned a non-member of Parliament was in 1880.

But Myler, Crone and Hinton face all three of those possibilities.

In addition, it is believed that Hinton may eventually face criminal charges related to the News Corporation hacking scandal as well.

I wonder, can Colin Myler run the New York Daily News from a British prison cell?

Commons Committee Report: Rupert Murdoch Is Unfit To Lead Major Company

The Commons culture, media and sport select committee is out this morning - and it's pretty devastating to News Corporation:

Rupert Murdoch is "not a fit person" to exercise stewardship of a major international company, a committee of MPs has concluded, in a report highly critical of the mogul and his son James's role in the News of the World phone-hacking affair.

The Commons culture, media and sport select committee also concluded that James Murdoch showed "wilful ignorance" of the extent of phone hacking during 2009 and 2010 – in a highly charged document that saw MPs split on party lines as regards the two Murdochs.

Labour MPs and the sole Liberal Democrat on the committee, Adrian Sanders, voted together in a bloc of six against the five Conservatives to insert the criticisms of Rupert Murdoch and toughen up the remarks about his son James. But the MPs were united in their criticism of other former News International employees.

The cross-party group of MPs said that Les Hinton, the former executive chairman of News International, was "complicit" in a cover-up at the newspaper group, and that Colin Myler, former editor of the News of the World, and the paper's ex-head of legal, Tom Crone, deliberately withheld crucial information and answered questions falsely. All three were accused of misleading parliament by the culture select committee.

Rupert Murdoch, the document said, "did not take steps to become fully informed about phone hacking" and "turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications".

The committee concluded that the culture of the company's newspapers "permeated from the top" and "speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International".

That prompted the MPs' report to say: "We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of major international company."

Hinton, Myler and Crone got hammered by the report:

The culture select committee charged Hinton with being "complicit" in a cover-up of wrongdoing at Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

MPs said that Myler and Crone deliberately withheld crucial information and answered falsely questions put by the committee.

The executives demonstrated contempt for parliament "in the most blatant fashion", the MPs said, in what they described as a corporate attempt to mislead the committee about the true extent of phone hacking at the News of the World.

The MPs said that Hinton, executive chairman of News International until December 2007, had "inexcusably" mislead the committee over his role in authorising the £243,000 payout to Clive Goodman, the former royal editor convicted of phone hacking in January that year.

"We consider, therefore, that Les Hinton was complicit in the cover-up at News International, which included making misleading statements and giving a misleading picture to the committee," the MPs said.

Crone and Myler were accused of deliberately misleading the MPs on the culture select committee in 2009 and again in 2011 about their alleged knowledge that phone hacking went beyond a single "rogue reporter" at the now-closed Sunday tabloid.

"Both Tom Crone and Colin Myler deliberately avoided disclosing crucial information to the committee and, when asked to do, answered questions falsely," the MPs said in the report.

All three executives now face the prospect of being called to apologise before parliament, in a constitutional move that has not been used for almost half a century.

The report could prove especially problematic for Myler, who is only five months into his editorship at the New York Daily News.

More on this later.

Former Wall Street Journal Publisher, Les Hinton, Accused Of Misleading Parliament

Interesting article from The Guardian on what tomorrow's committee report will look like:

James Murdoch will be criticised by MPs investigating phone hacking on Tuesday, but their assessment of his conduct is expected to fall just short of accusing the former chairman of News International of misleading parliament about the extent of his knowledge of the affair.

The all party culture media and sport select committee concluded they could not reach a final decision about whether Murdoch misled them because of what the MPs described as conflicting evidence, according to a source close to the process. However, there was enough to lead members to agree that Murdoch had not asked the questions that would help determine the true extent of phone hacking at the News of the World for several years.

...

The select committee will reserve some of its strongest condemnation for Murdoch's predecessor in the role, Les Hinton, who had appeared before the committee three times over the past five years. Hinton told the committee last October that he was right to have told MPs in 2009 that phone hacking was not rife at the newspaper.

Hinton is expected to be accused of misleading parliament as a result, with MPs particularly focused on his evidence as regards Clive Goodman, the former News of the World royal editor, who went to jail for hacking in 2007.

Goodman subsequently made an unfair dismissal complaint, saying hacking was "widely discussed" until reference to it was banned by the then editor. But Hinton said the complaint was unfounded, and amounted to "accusations and allegations".

The parliamentary report will also criticise the former News of the World editor Colin Myler and the newspaper's long serving chief lawyer Tom Crone in a long awaited document due to be released on Tuesday.

Myler, who is now editor of the New York Daily News, and Crone had been repeatedly pressed on their failure to uncover what had happened.

However, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, the two previous editors of the Sunday tabloid when phone hacking took place, will not be singled out, because both have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the intercepting of voicemail messages.

Committee members felt they could not condemn indiduals who had been arrested – providing some relief for David Cameron, who appointed Coulson as his chief spin doctor after Coulson resigned from the News of the World after Goodman was jailed.

Here are some questions:

So now the ball is in Les Hinton's court - does he take the fall for the hacking and corruption scandal or does he tell what he REALLY knows Rupert Murdoch knew about the whole thing? (as Rupert's right hand man for a long, long time, Hinton knows where some bodies are buried...)

Also, will Colin Myler be criticized for not taking enough steps to clear up the hacking matter at NOTW or will he too be accused of misleading Parliament?

And can he remain as Daily News editor if he is criticized in the committee report for not taking the corrective actions needed to clean up the newsroom? (I think if he is accused of lying to Parliament, he has to go - but what do I know? I wouldn't have thought he'd have gotten another job after the NOTW mess!)

So far the Murdochs and their "fixer" Joel Klein are managing to hang the scandal onto others.

Some of those people have pushed back.

Myler and Tom Crone have already accused James Murdoch of lying.

When does Les Hinton take on the Murdochs?