There is little doubt he was writing the conclusion he would like to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee's long-awaited report into phone-hacking
James Murdoch's seven-page "I did not know about wrongdoing" letter to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee made for a curious bookend to a corporate career that began in public in Britain with an even lengthier strategy presentation in his early days at BSkyB. On the face of it, the apparently unsolicited letter – little more than a restatement of his previous oral testimony – was a curious thing to send, even if it might have seemed superficially characteristic from a man who, when he was chief executive of Sky, used to ring reporters out of the blue in the afternoon to go over the results presentation that he had already made in the morning.
The existence of the missive was first leaked to the Financial Times on Tuesday. A day later there was an extraordinary effort to publish the document just in time for Radio 4's Media Show. Committee clerks, who at lunchtime insisted that there could be no possibility of publication until next week, were surprised to discover an extraordinary meeting by email had been convened, with the happy result that the paperwork was released seven minutes before the radio programme was on air. Somebody on the committee was keen for Murdoch's letter to get out.
There is little doubt that he was writing the conclusion he would like to the CMS committee's long-awaited report into phone hacking. Opting for ignorance, Murdoch conceded: "I take my share of responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier" but added: "It is important to note I did not turn a blind eye." However, it is not for Murdoch Jr to write the select committee report, whose verdict on him has become important to his continuing as chairman of BSkyB (as if the well-qualified board cannot make up its own mind).
So important has the form of words become that it is already the subject of a battle between members, several of whom have clear affiliations both for and against the man, and judging by various rumours from the committee, in some instances have been taking briefings from News Corp and elsewhere. No wonder Rupert Murdoch wants to be nearby.
The truth, though, is that James Murdoch's letter looks pretty accurate. He wasn't at News International when hacking occurred. We have not seen any clear-cut evidence that he was briefed on the extent of hacking in an email, for all the endless dissection of the circumstances around the Gordon Taylor settlement. He accepts that it turned out to be a serious error to believe the Met police more than the Guardian, given that John Yates announced within hours that there was nothing further to investigate after the Guardian published its allegations in July 2009.
Yet, for all the letter's length, there is much that it leaves out. There is the police's contention that there was a "culture of corrupt payments at the Sun". What, if anything, did Murdoch do about that? A decision to tighten cash payments in the summer of 2011 came four years after he arrived at News International.
There are emerging allegations of email deletions at News International. Court documents, filed by victims of hacking, allege that the newspaper publisher produced an email deletion policy in November 2009 whose aim was to "eliminate in a consistent manner" emails "that could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation". Of course, there is no evidence that Murdoch was involved, but his letter does not address the point. Finally, there is his relationship with Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive re-arrested again last week. Murdoch robustly defended Brooks and her "standard of ethics" on the day the News of the World closed.
No doubt MPs will reflect on all these events too.