Murdoch 'has full support of board'
A News Corp board member said today embattled chief executive Rupert Murdoch had the full support of the company's board of directors and denied it was considering replacing him with chief operating officer Chase Carey.
Thomas Perkins dismissed a report saying independent directors had considered the company's succession plan yesterday, including naming Mr Carey as CEO.
Mr Murdoch will give evidence to Parliament today on the UK phone hacking scandal.
Bloomberg News, citing unnamed sources, said a decision on a replacement at the top of News Corp depended in part on Murdoch's performance before lawmakers.
Mr Perkins, 79, has been an independent News Corp director since 1996 and is cofounder of Silicon Valley venture capital fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He vehemently denied the report and said there was no directors' meeting yesterday.
"I can assure you, there has been no discussion at the board level in connection with this current scandal of making any changes. The board supports top management totally," he said.
"The board has been misled, as has top management been misled, by very bad people at a very low level in the organisation."
But 80-year-old Mr Murdoch's capacity to cope with the crisis has been tested, and speculation that he would speed his retirement over the scandal has quickened.
Last week he at first refused to appear before a parliamentary committee before changing his mind hours later. He also told The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, that he was "getting annoyed" at the stream of negative headlines and was "tired".
Mr Perkins said a succession plan had long been in place given Mr Murdoch's age, but it had not been brought up in light of recent revelations that journalists at the News of the World hacked phones and may have paid British police for scoops.
"I have a lot of faith in Rupert Murdoch. He's a great guy, he's a friend of mine. He's a genius. And I know he's devastated by this. Just devastated. And I worry about him, you know, physically, being about the same age," Mr Perkins said.
Mr Murdoch's 38-year-old son James has long been considered the heir-apparent to his father's media empire. But he is also due to appear before MPs and has said he approved payments to hacking victims when he was chief executive of News Corp's European and Asian operations.
Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Murdoch's UK newspaper arm, will also appear.
News Corp has named commercial lawyer Anthony Grabiner head of its own panel looking into allegations of wrongdoing, called the Management and Standards Committee.
Although the committee includes executives who worked for the UK unit overseeing the scandal-tainted tabloid, Mr Perkins insisted he would "personally make damn sure" that the internal probe would be independent.
The committee is to report its findings to Joel Klein, the former US assistant attorney general and now head of News Corp's education division. He will report to independent director Viet Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor.
A News Corp spokesman said Mr Klein was unavailable to speak.
