James Murdoch, News Corp. bracing for another week of intense scrutiny in phone hacking scandal

Last week in the British phone-hacking scandal saw the principal focus turn on News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch's survival. This week, however, it seems likely that Rupert Murdoch's son James will occupy center stage in the scandal. The testimony that James Murdoch, who works as News Corp.'s deputy chief operating officer, delivered before Parliament last week is now drawing fire from former employees, and sparking new investigations from lawmakers and Scotland Yard. And that, in turn, looks to spell serious trouble for James Murdoch's ongoing tenure as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting.

The board of BSkyB meets on Thursday for the first time since the phone hacking scandal prompted News Corp. to drop its takeover bid, and Murdoch's chairmanship will certainly be on the agenda. The other big agenda item on Thursday certainly doesn't look to aid James Murdoch's cause, either: The board will weigh the U.K. communications regulator's inquiry about whether News Corp. is "fit and proper" to hold a broadcasting license for BSkyB. (For his part, James said late last week he has no plans to step down from the BSkyB board.)

On Friday, the select Parliamentary committee that grilled both the younger and elder Murdochs on the phone-hacking case last week is scheduled to meet to discuss whether James Murdoch should be called back for more questioning. Late last week, three former News International executives claimed James Murdoch misled the committee, but the younger Murdoch stood by his testimony.

According to an unnamed New York Times source, Murdoch's testimony could also face a challenge from a fourth source: "an outside attorney who was also privy to discussions surrounding a confidential settlement to a phone hacking victim in 2008, which Mr. Murdoch approved, according to several lawyers with knowledge of the proceedings."

And News Corp. is reportedly bracing for subpoenas from a U.S. investigation into alleged hacking of 9/11 victims.

"It's a far cry from the sigh of relief some at News Corp. breathed after last week's parliamentary hearing, when the initial feeling was that nothing had transpired to make matters worse for either Murdoch," the Wall Street Journal noted on Monday. "The News Corp. board is expected to meet in person in early August, according to people familiar with the matter, and it isn't expected to make any major decisions related to the scandal at least until then. But the people said the situation could change depending on events."

"James Murdoch is done," David Carr wrote in the New York Times. "He and his father both know that. His testimony curdled as he emitted it, and within two days a couple of former News Corporation executives publicly challenged it. The hooks are still in him, as Prime Minister David Cameron made clear when he said James still had 'questions to answer.' And so he will, gradually sinking further into the mess he has overseen."

Also being drawn into the phone hacking whirlpool is CNN host Piers Morgan, whose career as a tabloid editor--briefly for the News of the World, less brief for the Daily Mirror--is now drawing scrutiny.

"Piers was extremely hands-on as an editor," James Hipwell, a former journalist at the Daily Mirror, told The Independent in an interview published over the weekend. "He was on the [newsroom] floor every day, walking up and down behind journalists, looking over their shoulders. I can't say 100 percent that he knew about [phone hacking]. But it was inconceivable he didn't."

On CNN last week, Morgan responded to Louise Mensch, the conservative member of Parliament who brought up Morgan and his 2005 book, "The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade," during the select committee hearing.

"For the record, in my time at 'The Mirror' and the 'News of the World,' I have never hacked a phone, told anybody to hack a phone or published any story based on the hacking of a phone," Morgan said.