James Murdoch Uses Saturday Defense to Explain Missed Phone-Hacking E-Mail

News Corp. (NWSA) Deputy Chief Operating Officer James Murdoch has an explanation for why he failed in 2008 to properly read an e-mail that then triggered a phone- hacking scandal: It was a Saturday.
Murdoch said he didn’t read the full e-mail from former News of the World editor Colin Myler showing that voice-mail interception went beyond a single reporter at the tabloid because he wasn’t in the office that day, documents released by the U.K. Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee show. Murdoch, who turned 39 yesterday, said he doesn’t recall any conversation with the editor that weekend.
The release of the e-mail renews pressure on Murdoch, son of News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and chairman of British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc (BSY), after shareholders of both companies lodged a protest vote against him. James Murdoch last month told the same U.K. committee he was kept in the dark by Myler and other executives. Both Myler and the tabloid’s lawyer Tom Crone insisted Murdoch was told about the message in 2008.

... The documents released yesterday are “pretty persuasive evidence of direct knowledge,” Edward Wasserman, the Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, said in an interview. “This is a fairly damning document that undermines the claim James didn’t know about the hacking till later.”