Murdoch Admits Phone Hacking “Cover-Up”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
During his second day of testimony at a parliamentary hearing on the phone hacking scandal, Rupert Murdoch apologized for the scandal, and, according to The New York Times, “coupled his apology with suggestions that there had been what he called a cover-up 'from within The News of the World' to hide the extent of the phone hacking scandal.”
From The New York Times:
After a day of testimony at a British judicial inquiry over his ties, friendships and disputes with British politicians, Rupert Murdoch returned to the witness stand on Thursday, saying he apologized for failing to take measures to avert the hacking scandal that has convulsed his media outpost here.
“I also have to say that I failed,” Mr. Murdoch told the so-called Leveson inquiry. “I am very sorry about it.”
He said that he had not paid adequate attention to the newspaper at the center of the scandal, The News of the World tabloid, which Mr. Murdoch closed in July as the affair widened.
“It was an omission by me,” he said, adding that he wished to apologize “to a lot of people, including all the innocent people” at The News of the World, a Sunday tabloid, “who lost their jobs.”
[...]
Casting himself as a victim, Mr. Murdoch coupled his apology with suggestions that there had been what he called a cover-up “from within The News of the World” to hide the extent of the phone hacking scandal. And, like James Murdoch on Tuesday, he seemed to blame subordinates for not alerting him to the practices being used at the newspaper to secure its scoops.
Bloomberg recently reported that there were likely more than 1,000 victims of the News of the World's phone hacking.
On Wednesday, Murdoch testified that he doesn't “believe in using hacking, in using private detectives or whatever, that's a lazy way of reporters not doing their job. But I think it is fair when people have themselves held up as iconic figures or great actors that they be looked at.”
Also on Wednesday, an aide to British culture secretary Jeremy Hunt submitted his resignation after the revelation on Tuesday of close communications between Hunt's office and James Murdoch.