When the News Corporation board convenes on the 20th Century Fox Studios lot Tuesday for its first meeting since a phone hacking scandal overseas plunged the company into turmoil, the participants will include many people with deep and personal ties to Rupert Murdoch.

One is a former Goldman Sachs president who helped News Corporation broker mega deals. Another is godfather to one of Mr. Murdoch’s grandchildren. Another ran Mr. Murdoch’s Australian subsidiary, News Limited.

And those are just some of the News Corporation’s independent directors, designated as such because they meet criteria intended to ensure that companies maintain a layer of objective oversight.

News Corporation considers nine of its 16 directors independent. Many owe their careers to Mr. Murdoch. Others made millions of dollars making him richer. Those include:

Roderick Eddington, the former chief executive of British Airways, who became deputy chairman of Mr. Murdoch’s Australian subsidiary, News Ltd., in 1997, a year after he was chosen to run Ansett Australia, the airline in which News Corporation owned a 50-percent stake.

Natalie Bancroft, the opera singer whose family agreed to sell Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal to Mr. Murdoch in 2007, and who made a sizeable fortune of her own from News Corporation’s $5 billion purchase.

Ken Cowley, who was chief executive and chairman of News Limited for nearly 20 years in the 1980s and 1990s.

Ken Cowley, who was chief executive and chairman of News Limited for nearly 20 years in the 1980s and 1990s. Viet Dinh, a former senior official in George W. Bush’s Justice Department and the principal author of the Patriot Act. Mr. Dinh is also godfather to a son of Lachlan Murdoch, the oldest of Mr. Murdoch’s children. He is ultimately responsible for the independent internal investigation going on into the phone hacking scandal at News Corporation’s British subsidiary, News International.

Andrew Knight, who was executive chairman of News International from 1990 to 1994.

John L. Thornton, the former Goldman Sachs president, who worked with News Corporation on a number of major deals.

News Corporation’s board is hardly the only one in corporate America that is stacked with independent directors who have close relationships with the companies that shareholders have elected them to serve. But corporate governance experts said that the long history between News Corporation and many of its independent directors is a glaring example of how chumminess in the boardroom can allow and even contribute to mismanagement.

“I keep watching this and thinking that they don’t realize we can see them,” said Lucy P. Marcus, chief executive of Marcus Venture Consulting who writes about corporate governance issues for the Harvard Business Review blog network. “The reason we have corporate governance is not because it’s a nice thing to do. It’s because if you actually have a robust board, it can be beneficial. I don’t think News Corp. would be in the same trouble that they are in now if they had an independent board.”

In order for an overhaul on the News Corporation board or any other corporate board, the rules governing who is eligible to serve as a director would need to change. And right now News Corporation is in full compliance of the rules set by the Nasdaq, the exchange on which its stock is traded, and federal law.

Nasdaq’s rules state broadly that independent directors cannot have a relationship that “would interfere with the exercise of independent judgment in carrying out the responsibilities of a director.” Specifically, the Nasdaq excludes anyone who was employed the company in the past three years. The rules do allow, however, for former employees collecting retirement benefits to serve as independent directors.

Some News Corporation shareholders have already started to press the issue. Wespath Investment Management, a division of the board of pension and health benefits for the United Methodist Church and owner of about 1.1 million News Corporation Class A shares, wrote to the board objecting to, among other things, the board’s seeming lack of independence.

“As shareholders interested in preserving the long-term value of the company, it is important that the board of directors act quickly to improve its governance standards,” the letter said.