News Corp slams UK MPs' report calling Murdoch 'unfit' as 'unjustified, partisan'

London, May 2 (ANI): News Corporation has slammed a British lawmaker's key report which said media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is an 'unfit person' to run an international organisation, calling it 'unjustified and highly partisan'.

The report into allegations of phone-hacking at News of The World, released by six members of the Commons media committee, said Murdoch is not a 'fit person' to run News Corp as he showed "wilful blindness" to the extent of phone-hacking at the now defunct tabloid.

According to The BBC, News Corp, however, admitted that it was 'too slow' to respond to the crisis, but insisted that it had 'acted on' the failings identified in the report.

"There was serious wrongdoing at the News of the World; our response to the wrongdoing was too slow and too defensive; and some of our employees misled the Select Committee in 2009," News Corp said.

But, in a reference to the claim about Murdoch, it said it regretted that analysis of the 'factual record' was followed by 'some commentary that we, and indeed several members of the committee, consider unjustified and highly partisan'.

The committee of MPs began its inquiry in July 2011 in the wake of fresh revelations about the extent of hacking at the tabloid newspaper, with targets including the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and the families of victims of the 7/7 London bombings.

The committee concluded that the notion that a hands-on proprietor like Rupert Murdoch had 'no inkling' that wrongdoing was widespread at the News of the World was 'simply not credible'.

It said News Corp was guilty of 'huge failings of corporate governance' and its instinct had been 'to cover up rather than seek out wrongdoing and discipline the perpetrators'. (ANI)