Biographer predicts News Corp. will oust Murdochs within 60 days

Rupert Murdoch's biographer and Vanity Fair scribe Michael Wolff predicts that both Rupert Murdoch and his son James will be out of power at News Corp within sixty days, according to a Retuers report.

Wolff says that the recent phone-hacking and police bribery scandals that have roiled the company put the family's dominance at the company in doubt and may bring it entirely to an end. "To restore credibility and to restore trust to this company," he said, "the newspapers have to go and the Murdochs have to go."

He claims that the Murdoch name is now "toxic" and that if the company retains members of the Australian media dynasty at its helm, News Corp will face "a lifetime of litigation."

Today, James Murdoch has been recalled to testify a second time before Parliament over allegations that he knowingly made false statements during his previous testimony. Britain's Culture, Media, and Sport Committee has been tasked with investigating the purported violations of the public trust at News of the World, the Murdoch paper that closed its doors earlier this month amid allegations that it had hacked the voice mail of a murdered girl.

Allegations surfaced yesterday that former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks had authorized the phone-tapping of yet another missing girl's mother. The story is particularly damning in that Brooks won the woman's trust and presented the cell phone to her as a gift, then ordered a private investigator to spy on her.

In his testimony before Parliament and throughout the unfolding scandal Rupert Murdoch has cagily insisted that he is a hands-on manager who is familiar with everything that goes on in his companies excluding anything illegal.

Michael Wolff spent years researching his biography of Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News, which was published in 2008. In an interview on "Insider TV", he said, "I think actually the Murdochs have to and will step out of not only day-to-day running, but they won't have jobs within the company."