His grilling of Rebekah was fair, accurate, not too aggressive but deadly.

Have to agree (and add, he was also rather mocking too !)

I think Brooks was right when she complained that Jay was too much interested in gossip and minor details.

Michael Wolff's annotations are very interesting:

"Robert Jay opened his examination of Rebekah Brooks by asking if, among other rumors of her surprising closeness to Rupert Murdoch, they had gone swimming together in London. She responded that this was absolutely not true.

In fact, Jay had just fumbled the question. Brooks, who did not elaborate beyond her flat denial, did go swimming with Murdoch off his boat (...)

I don't know Brooks well enough by any means to conclude that she is a sociopath, genius manipulator, or just an extremely dedicated careerist. But there is a certainly a baldness, even insouciance to her evasions and reinventions. Hers has been an extraordinary story, as rich as any, as intricately plotted as they come. And Robert Jay hardly began to get the flavor of it.

She is a figure far larger than mere press ethics. A novelistic construct. A self-imagined creature.

And now, she holds the Murdochs' fate in her hands."

How Rebekah Brooks worked the Murdochs, even as she worked for them

Our lovely Madame Arcati points out - would Rupert have bought a MALE editor a suit?