LONDON — News Corp. executive James Murdoch’s behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign has spilled into the public domain, casting a harsh light on the British government’s Olympics czar.
Murdoch was speaking Tuesday before Lord Justice Brian Leveson’s media-ethics inquiry set up in the wake of the country’s phone-hacking scandal.
Some of Murdoch’s testimony revisited his own role in the scandal, but far more explosive were revelations about how senior British ministers went out of their way to smooth the path for one of his biggest-ever business deals.
Particularly damning was correspondence showing how Olympics czar Jeremy Hunt secretly backed Murdoch’s multibillion-dollar bid for full control of satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting Group. As the minister charged with deciding whether to refer the takeover deal to Britain’s competition authority, Hunt was meant to have been neutral.
Murdoch eventually was forced to drop the proposed deal after the phone-hacking scandal emerged, but the e-mails could still be damaging to
Hunt, the most senior government official dedicated to the 2012 Games.
