Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by James Murdoch, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Chairman and CEO, International, News Corporation

Thank you for your letter of 19 January 2012. I set out below the answers to the two questions you have asked, and also address an additional matter which has recently received media attention.

(1)I am informed by the Management and Standards Committee that no further information on this matter has come to light since my letter of 1 December 2011.

(2)The meeting I believe you are referring to was titled “Privacy Lawsuits”, and appears in my diary for 13 June 2008, from 1200–1300.

In addition to me, the invited participants were:

John Witherow, the editor of The Sunday Times;

James Harding, the editor of The Times;

Rebekah Brooks, the then editor of The Sun;

Colin Myler, the then editor of the News of the World (Tom Crone may also have attended at the suggestion of Mr Myler); and

Matthew Anderson, the Group Director: Strategy & Corporate Affairs at News Corporation.

The meeting was arranged by my office, and the calendar invitation was sent on 5 June 2008 at 1435, while I was overseas.

I do not recall the meeting in detail, but believe that it involved a broad discussion of privacy issues facing the business as a whole. Both the News of the World (in the proceedings by Mr Mosley) and The Sun were facing privacy claims and the Court of Appeal had, in May 2008, handed down a judgment in favour of J K Rowling, who had made a claim on behalf of her son against the Sunday Express and a picture agency, over a photograph of her son which had been taken in a public street. This was a development that had the potential of affect all of the newspaper industry, including News International’s titles. As all four of the company’s editors attended the meeting, I do not believe the Taylor proceedings were discussed; it would not have been appropriate to do so.

You have asked for confirmation that my answer to Question 2 can be published, and I confirm that it can.

I trust that the information above answers the questions in your letter.

The other matter I would like to address relates to some of the newspaper articles that were written last week relating to the settlement of a number of claims against News Group Newspapers. This litigation is being handled by the Management and Standards Committee and not by me: I have no involvement in the conduct of the various cases. I wish to confirm again that I was not aware of evidence of widespread wrongdoing and did not seek to conceal it, as I have made clear in my previous testimony to the Committee.

26 January 2012