News Corp. Shares Keep Sliding As Hacking Scandal Deepens

Shares of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) slid another 4.3 percent on Monday, after even more bad news for the company at the center of a huge phone-hacking scandal that seems to keep getting worse by the day.

The stock is down almost 17 percent since July 5.

On Friday, Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, the UK subsidiary which owned the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, resigned from her position. By Sunday, she was under arrest by London police.

Speaking of the Bobbies, the two most senior police officers in England, Sir John Stephenson and John Yates, have resigned from their positions after questions arose as to why they hired a former NOTW executive (who is now in custody) and why they didn’t more aggressively investigate the newspaper over phone-hacking allegations.

But it gets even worse for Murdoch.

A former NOTW reporter, Sean Hoare, who blew the whistle on the paper’s hacking activities, has been found dead.

Rupert and his son James will appear before a committee of British MPs top directly answer questions about the hacking at the papers they control.
Meanwhile, News Corp. may face an investigation on this side of the Atlantic from the US Justice Department in connection with phone hacking.

The bewilderment and outrage of News Corp, shareholders might be best illustrated by a statement from the Nathan Cummings Foundation in New York: Given the shocking allegations about News International's practices in Britain, which have raised questions about the company's credibility and had a significant downward impact on its stock price, we believe it is now more important than ever that the company is transparent about its political spending and policies.