Perhaps it may be argued as follows:-

News International owes its market share and financial strength to state
regulation blocking entry to potential competitors. As such, the application
of he who pays the piper is just and equitable.

I’d guess it was not disgust at what Rebekah Broks had done that kicked off
the witch hunt but fear of what she might know.

There are many serious things going on in the world that the MSM
can’t/won’t cover – whether the hoi polloi are interested is a topic for
another day – but my point is that the media prefer to give us a circus to
watch rather than debate the real issues.

The circus is usually celeb culture, royal family (a special sub-set of
celebs), sport, scandal and the hacking issue is just a great example of the
latter they can run with for a long time. All these things act as a
distraction from the existential threats to our way of life that our politicos
resolutely refuse to recognise – far less deal with

In no particular order (but all connected) these issuse are Islam, Peak
Oil, and sovereign debt

Well Pericles, the politicians reckon they own us and the world they and we
inhabit so it gives them free rein to think they can run the corporates as
well.
Telling everyone how to run their affairs is a bit rich coming from
them duplicitous windbags though!

To me, the case below is comparable.
An incident took place (see below,
an oil pollution) and at the time of the incident the CEO/Owner was on holiday
at the time.
However, the court held that he should have had in place
standing orders prohibiting the master of the ship from behaving as he did (in
this case, using an out-of-date chart when he had an up-to-date chart
onboard).
OK the charts thing is clearly not interesting in the NoW case,
but that was a technical matter.
In the NoW case, the equivalent of charts
would be “the right of privacy”.
Surely the CEO of NoW and in fact any
newspaper should have standing instructions prohibiting the obtaining,
extraction or use of any private communication?
The question is, did Ms
Brooks have in fact such instructions in place, or not?

This is the case in question.
“The Marion” [1984]2 LLR 1] fouled an oil
pipeline whilst weighing anchor. The shipowner (“owners”) admitted that the
severe damage was caused partly by the negligence of the master who had been
navigating with an out of date chart. Owners brought a limitation action that,
at first instance, was upheld as the owners established that the damage had
not been caused “with their actual fault or privity”. The defendant
successfully appealed in the Court of Appeal and the case was taken to the
House of Lords by the owners. The House of Lords upheld the Court of Appeal’s
decision dismissing the owners appeal, on the basis that three requirements
with regard to charts had to be fulfilled in order to ensure the safe
navigation of a ship on the voyages undertaken by her:

Current versions of relevant charts should be available for
use;
Obsolete/superseded charts should be destroyed or segregated from the
current charts;
Charts should either be corrected up to date at all time or
at least such corrections should be made prior to their use on a particular
voyage.
It was held that the managing director of the vessel’s management
company had a duty to supervise the master in the keeping of up-to-date charts
and failure to do so constituted actual fault of the owners.

In answer to your question, Anna, of course it should be up to the
shareholders to keep or fire the CEO, but before they exercise that right they
are entitled to the right of being fully informed, of the activities or
inactivities of the CEO.