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Mr Rupert and Mr James Murdoch have been issued with a formal summons to attend a House of Commons committee meeting next week, after the two declined to attend.
So far Ms Rebekah Brooks, the Chief Executive of News International, is the only one of the three senior executives who has agreed to appear before the Culture, Media and Sport inquiry on Tuesday.
Mr James Murdoch, who as a US citizen like his father may not be compelled to attend, offered to appear in August. Mr Rupert Murdoch, declining to appear before the committee, has said he will give evidence to the judge-led public inquiry announced by the British Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron, earlier this week.
“Having done this, I would be happy to discuss with you how best to give evidence to your committee,” wrote the elder Murdoch in his note.
Ms Brooks' pledge to appear before the committee came with caveats too: in a letter to Mr John Whittinghdale MP, the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee she warned that it would not be appropriate for them to answer certain questions for fear of clashing with the police inquiry.
News Corp's decision to back out of its bid to acquire the 60.1 per cent of broadcaster BSkyB that it doesn't already own has done little to quell the furore over the hacking scandal.
Reform of the press
Mr Nick Clegg, the country's Deputy Prime Minister, called for fundamental reform of the press. “Together, the political class, parts of the police, and the press have granted our media an institutionalised immunity from the basic standards that govern the rest of society,” he said in a speech in London on Thursday. “What we need is independent regulation, insulated from vested interests within the media, and free from Government interference too.”
The Police on Thursday arrested a ninth person in connection to the hacking scandal, reported to be News of the World's former executive editor, Mr Neil Wallis. Ironically, Mr Wallis was a former member of the Press Complaints Commission.
Along with other bodies that looked into the hacking scandal since it began in 2006, the PCC's inquiries have come in for criticism.
On Wednesday, Mr Cameron announced the terms of the judge-led public inquiry, which would include an examination of what had gone wrong in the News of the World case in particular, as well as wider consideration at the State, regulation and ownership of the media.
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