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For months, the British have been holding a public inquiry into press ethics. The government set this up after a big outcry over the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ of the World. The inquiry is shining a light into the secluded world of the people who run that ancient country, in particular, says NPR's Philip Reeves, the prime minister's social set.

This week the British Parliamentary Committee that convened to investigate accusations of phone hacking and executive misconduct at Rupert Murdoch's °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ Corp. delivered its findings. The headlines it created make uncomfortable reading for a media tycoon who has been under the microscope for 18 months now. Scott Simon talks with NPR's David Folkenflik about Parliament's scathing report.

The board met to discuss a British report that said Murdoch was unfit to run his company.

The Murdochs find themselves bloodied at a time they are seeking to restore calm and show they still can assert control over the international corporation. And Tuesday's report concluding that °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ Corp. misled Parliament about the scale of phone hacking is not the final word. The likelihood of consequences in the U.S. hangs on the horizon.

There has been a "lack of effective corporate governance" at °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ Corp. and a culture of problems that "permeated from the top," a British Parliament committee concludes. It's scathing report follows the so-called hacking scandal in the U.K.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch testified today that lower-level executives were the ones behind a cover-up of the so-called hacking scandal and that they kept him from knowing about what had happened.

An inquiry continues into the ethics of the British news media, and in particular the actions of some tabloids owned by Murdoch's °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ Corp.

Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper division is accused of phone hacking and bribing police officers. That scandal has already cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. Now °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ Corp. is fending off media reports that a specialized unit engaged in industrial espionage on behalf of the company's global satellite and cable TV operations.