Murdoch should be booted off board, says influential research firm

Not that it's likely to happen when News Corp. holds its annual meeting later this month in L.A. But Institutional Shareholder Services, a well-known proxy advisory firm, is calling for the resignation of Murdoch, along with 12 other directors. Via LAT:

"The company's phone-hacking scandal, which began its public denouement in July 2011, has laid bare a striking lack of stewardship and failure of independence by a board whose inability to set a strong tone-at-the-top about unethical business practices has now resulted in enormous costs -- financial, legal, regulatory, reputational, and opportunity -- for the shareholders the board ostensibly serves," ISS said. The phone-hacking debacle, which has led to several resignations within News Corp., is "part of a mosaic of failures of board independence, oversight, and responsiveness to shareholder concerns stretching back at least to 2004, when the company reincorporated from Australia to Delaware," ISS added.

From Bloomberg:

Murdoch's 40 percent stake in the company's Class B voting shares would make it difficult to enact board changes that differ from his wishes. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a friend of the Murdoch family, owns 7 percent of voting shares. "I can see a substantial minority voting against some of the management's proposal, but seeing a majority voting against management seems unlikely," Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at Governance Metrics International, said.