News Corp.’s Joel Klein is off management and standards committee

News Corp. is changing the reporting structure of its management and standards committee, which the media giant created in response to the ethics scandal at its British newspaper unit.

The committee’s purpose is to cooperate with the ongoing probe into News Corp.’s British newspapers as well as to serve as something akin to an internal affairs division. Last month, it issued a lengthy report that gave a clean bill of health toNews Corp.’s the Times and the Sunday Times.

Joel Klein, a News Corp. executive vice president and close advisor to the media giant’s chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, no longer will have direct oversight of the committee. Instead, it will report to Gerson Zweifach, who joined News Corp. in January as its general counsel.

Hired by by News Corp. in November 2010 to run its fledgling education division, Klein soon took a hands-on role in the phone hacking fiasco at its News of the World tabloid. A lawyer by training and a former antitrust chief at the Justice Department, Klein clashed often with News Corp.’s then-general counsel Lon Jacobs about how the company should respond to the accusations of wrong-doing at the company’s News International unit. Jacobs resigned just more than a year ago.

In a statement, News Corp. said the shift will allow Klein to transition back to his role as chief executive of News Corp.’s education unit.

The management and standards committee will continue to report to Viet Dinh, an independent director of the News Corp. board and chairman of its corporate governance committee. While Dinh is considered an independent member, he is godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch’s grandchildren.

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