Rupert and James Murdoch to appear before hacking inquiry as Gillard considers probe into media ownership

The political damage caused by the News Corp hacking scandal has continued to worsen, with Greens leader Bob Brown calling for an inquiry into media ownership in Australia, a suggestion welcomed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch and local News Limited CEO John Hartigan have continued to defend the company with Murdoch saying it has handled the entire controversy “extremely well in every way possible”.

Rupert and News International chief James Murdoch have agreed to appear before a parliamentary inquiry into the scandal in Britain next Tuesday.

But the damage may be spreading across the Atlantic, with the FBI announcing that it will investigate whether victims of 9/11 were targeted by journalist hackers.

Brown said yesterday the time has come for a full debate over media ownership in Australia.

“It is timely for us to review the media practices, media ownership and how well the Media Alliance’s own code of ethics is working in Australia,” he said.

“But that said I think there’s quite a bit of concern I’m being fed from within the media … about the narrow range of media opinion and the intrusion of opinion into news columns in sections of Australian media.”

The announcement was welcomed by Gillard, who said some of the reporting in Australia is “complete crap”.

“I’m not surprised to see that in parliament or amongst parliamentarians a conversation is starting about the need for a review and I will be happy to sit down with parliamentarians and discuss that review,” she said yesterday at the National Press Club.

“I anticipate that we’ll have a discussion amongst parliamentarians about this, about the best review and way of dealing with all of this.”

Murdoch continued to defend News Corp over the scandal, which has seen the company close one newspaper and withdraw its multi-billion dollar bid for UK television operator BSkyB.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal – his first major remarks since the scandal broke – Murdoch said the company responded well and that his son James “acted as fast as he could”.

Murdoch said reports that the company would sell some of its newspapers were “pure and total rubbish … give it the strongest possible denial you can give”.

He said he decided to appear at the parliamentary inquiry after initially saying he would not in order to clarify “some of the things that have been said in parliament, some of which are total lies”.

“We think it’s important to absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public … I felt that it’s best just to be as transparent as possible.”

The defence comes as Hartigan, who has written to Australian employees warning them of an investigation into the past three years of expenditure, continued to defend local operations despite calls for the inquiry into media ownership.

He responded to claims from Brown and Gillard that News Limited papers are biased, pointing out that the pair’s popularity is waning.

“What they see is bias and unfair reporting. To get a good lie of the land you have to look at their record low polling and therefore it appears there are significant pockets of unhappiness in the country,” he said.

He said Gillard was “unnerved” by the fact that The Australian believes itself to set much of the political agenda every day.