Murdoch slams experts about board pick

Andrew Brook and Stephen Clark of The Guardian write Thursday that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch responded to corporate governance experts who criticized the Bancroft family member chosen to join its board after it acquires Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal.

Brook and Clark wrote, “Nell Minow, co-founder of the Corporate Library which provides information on corporate governance, questioned her lack of experience, suggesting that News Corp might ‘put her on the committee that plans the Christmas party and call it a day’.

“This was described as ‘rubbish’ by Mr Murdoch, who expressed contempt for corporate governance gurus: ‘Just remember what they said when Google floated. They said it was the worst corporate governance model they’d ever seen – it shows what they know about it.”‘

Later, they wrote, “In a conference call with analysts, Mr Murdoch said he intended to make the Wall Street Journal into ‘the number one journalistic product in the world’. He has already paid several visits to the paper’s newsroom: ‘I’ve not spent as much time down there as I would have liked, or as has been publicised, but all that I’ve seen has given me great faith in the business’s potential.'”

Read more here.