Keeping up appearances

Rebekah Brooks has been invited to give evidence before a parliamentary committee (Image: Leon Neal, AFP/Getty)

In Britain, the chairman of the House of Commons culture, media and sports committee, says he still doesn't know whether Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch plan to turn up to a select committee hearing.

It was announced on Tuesday that they had been sent invitations, but John Whittingdale told the BBC that no final response had been forthcoming.

Some have pondered options that would involve trying to compel Brooks and the Murdochs to appear. That may involve the Commons taking on new powers, though, or exercising rather archaic existing ones.

Politicians, including the Liberal Democrats' Nick Clegg today, have been assiduously sticking to the line that the trio should give evidence irrespective of whether they're forced to.

"Do the decent thing... make yourself available," Clegg said.

UPDATE, 8:50PM AEST / 11:50AM BST | Rebekah Brooks will appear before the committee on Tuesday. Both of the Murdochs declined, and will now face summons from the committee. James Murdoch offered to turn up at a date next month, but the committee was not satisfied with that. The full story is here.

UPDATE, 2:00AM AEST / 5:00PM BST | Rupert and James Murdoch have also relented. The full story is here.

Washington impact

Jay Rockefeller is one of half a dozen legislators who have called for an investigation in the United States (Image: Getty)

The phone-hacking scandal is starting to make waves among politicians in the United States. Congressional leadership figures say they aren't on top of the details, and negotiations between the two parties on the issue of raising the country's borrowing limit have been sucking political oxygen.

Still, calls for an inquiry or other forms of action are getting louder, due in large part to an allegation earlier this week suggesting that the News of the World was trying to obtain the details of 9/11 victims.

Jay Rockefeller, a Democratic senator, was first off the mark and has co-signed a letter with his Democratic colleague Barbara Boxer asking the Department of Justice and Security and Exchange Commission to investigate corruption.

Others legislators - especially those representing New York or its congressional districts - have also expressed their concerns.

Former WSJ owners' regrets

The Wall Street Journal was bought by News Corp in 2007, but the former owners are now expressing regrets (Image: WSJ)

Members of the Bancroft family - which controlled The Wall Street Journal at the time of its sale to News Corporation back in 2007 - say that they may not have allowed such a deal to go ahead if they had been aware of the scale of the hacking and corruption scandal.

Christopher Bancroft owned a 13 per cent stake in the Journal's former publisher, Dow Jones & Company. He told ProPublica that "if I had known what I know now, I would have pushed harder against it".

His reservations were backed by two other family members. Elisabeth Goth said simply that if the current revelations had been available to her four years ago, she would have said "no".

Back in 2007, News Corp was taking the line that phone hacking was practised by a single "rogue reporter", Clive Goodman.

On file

• News Corp pulled out of its bid for BSkyB. The company was facing humiliation whatever it did, but that it wasn't keen on having the entire House of Commons vote to condemn the proposal.
• Julia Gillard has suggested that she would be open to a review of media in Australia, although she avoided making any comment on what form such a review would take.
• David Cameron outlined the details of the judge-led inquiry in Britain, which will examine phone hacking and the "failed" media regulatory system.

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