No Senate Commerce Hearings, Investigations of News Corp. Planned

No decision yet from E & C Committee on how to respond to request to investigate News Corp.

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/18/2011 4:27:05 PM

A Senate Commerce Committee source speaking on background said that no committee investigations or hearings into News Corp. were currently planned.

The company continues to be rocked by revelations connected to the hacking of phones by the shuttered News of the World.

The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), last week called for investigations by the appropriate agencies, including the DOJ and SEC, into whether News Corp. had violated any U.S. laws.

At press time there had been no decision from the House Energy & Commerce Committee on how to respond to a Democrat request for that committee to investigate News Corp.

House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has not responded to a request from the ranking Democrat on the committee, Anna Eshoo of California, to launch that investigation, according to a source speaking on background. Eshoo made the request during a July 14 Communications Subcommittee hearing on privacy. "I would like to call on the chairman of the full [House Energy & Commerce] Committee to use its jurisdiction to probe the whole issue of privacy, hacking and this burgeoning scandal at News Corporation.  It fits with the subject matter we are here in a joint hearing today for," she had said.

She pointed out it was one of the most powerful committees in Congress. "We certainly have the jurisdiction and I think it needs to be exercised.

Chairman Upton, who was also at the hearing, did not address the request then, and a spokesman for the chairman had no comment on what his answer would be.