Off With His Head!

by Norman HorowitzBruce had promised his wife Blanche that he would be on time for a very important family function, and of course he is late. Blanche flies into an absolute rage and vilifies him endlessly. When she calms down, he tells her that he was late because he was having sex with his mistress, and that she would not let him leave, and that he wanted a divorce.As Blanche begins to cry, Bruce tells her that he made up the business with the girlfriend to point out how nuts she had become about his tardiness and how unimportant it was.In a similar way, the Brits have gone bonkers over a News Corporation transgression that took place in the UK.Yes, News Corp. did a horrid thing. And yes, they should be punished. But not Rupert Murdoch.Murdoch has admitted that a cover-up took place within the News of the World to hide the scope of the phone hacking.The British Parliament released a report concluding that Murdoch "exhibited willful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications" and stated that he was "not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company."I disagree.Many years ago, I did business with Murdoch and have met with him a few times. I hold him in the highest esteem for assembling a gigantic media empire and doing it with an integrity that was unknown in Hollywood for decades. (It was certainly absent at the studios where I worked). I have never worked for News Corp., but I have known many of their senior people and have never had reason to question their integrity.I joined MGM/UA in the mid-1980s with responsibilities over a variety of media segments. We uncovered a relatively significant defalcation, and the individual involved left the company. Should my Chairman have been forced to resign because of this? I think not. He was not involved in the crime, and he had no reason to have known that it had taken place.Similarly, during my tenure at Columbia Pictures, there was a major defalcation, yet the management was not called upon to fall on its sword.Indeed, many of the studios and major production companies have tolerated criminal activities in their own company rather than risk the scandal that disclosure would entail. I can "name names," but no one has ever seemed interested.So, while I believe that News Corp. should be punished, I do not expect that Rupert Murdoch be held responsible for the actions of a few overly zealous employees.