World is watching as Murdochs prepare for showdown

Foreign TV crews are out in force at Westminster as the prospect of seeing Rupert Murdoch grilled by MPs dominates the news agenda around the world.

US news networks Fox, CNN and MSNBC – as well as Australia’s ABC – will all be rolling live as the media tycoon answers questions from the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee at Portcullis House.

The chairman of News Corporation will be followed into the hot seat by his son James, who heads the company in Europe and Asia, and former News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks.

Both CNN and the Murdoch-owned Fox network said they would broadcast the event on more than one of their channels simultaneously due to enormous public interest in the story in America.

Many Australians are also expected to stay up through the night to hear Mr Murdoch’s evidence. The ABC network has launched a “pop-up” radio station to broadcast uninterrupted coverage of the evidence without disrupting its other programmes – a technique previously used to cover national disasters like the Queensland floods.

Piers Morgan, a former News of the World editor, is expected to review the day’s events on his CNN show later this evening.

The global reach of Mr Murdoch’s media empire has generated intense international interest in the phone hacking scandal, despite no evidence of wrongdoing in jurisdictions beyond the UK so far.

Australia’s ABC network has launched a pop-up radio station to broadcast coverage of the evidence – a technique previously used to cover national disasters.

Australian politicians have called for a public inquiry into media ethics and ownership in the country, although no allegations of phone hacking or other criminal activity at any of the titles owned by Mr Murdoch’s massive News Limited organisation have been made.

US Attorney General Eric Holder has said he will look into requests by politicians in Washington for a probe into claims of phone hacking in the United States.

The FBI said it would investigate allegations that the News of the World contacted a private investigator in the US with a view to hacking into the phone records of 9/11 victims.

News Corporation shares rose 2.5 per cent on Tuesday after Bloomberg reported that US shareholders were considering promoting current Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey to the position of CEO if Mr Murdoch, 80, stands down.

The report said that a decision has not yet been made and much depends on Mr Murdoch’s performance before the parliamentary committee.

The tycoon took out full-page adverts in British national newspapers to apologise for wrongdoing by News of the World reporters at the weekend.

But he has used his US title the Wall Street Journal to signal that he is not prepared to take every criticism lying down.

The Schadenfreude is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw. Wall Street Journal editorial on the phone-hacking scandal

Giving his first interview since the scandal broke to the newspaper last week, Mr Murdoch accused some UK MPs of telling “total lies”.

In an editorial on Monday, the Wall Street Journal urged its readers to “see through the commercial and ideological motives of our competitor-critics”, adding: “The Schadenfreude is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw.”

In a reference to the Guardian, the editorial added: “Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur.

“They want their readers to believe, based on no evidence, that the tabloid excesses of one publication somehow tarnish thousands of other News Corp journalists across the world.”