The chief executive officer of Dow Jones & Co., a man who once headed the Rupert Murdoch company at the center of the phone-hacking scandal, resigned Friday as Murdoch himself apologized for "serious wrongdoing" in an ad running in the British press this weekend.
Les Hinton submitted a resignation letter to Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, and to News Corp., the Murdoch company that controls Dow Jones.
"I have watched with sorrow from New York as the News of the World story has unfolded," Hinton wrote in a section addressed to Murdoch. "I have seen hundreds of news reports of both actual and alleged misconduct during the time I was executive chairman of News International and responsible for the company. The pain caused to innocent people is unimaginable. That I was ignorant of what apparently happened is irrelevant and in the circumstances I feel it is proper for me to resign from News Corp, and apologize to those hurt by the actions of the News of the World."
Hinton ran News International, News Corp.'s British newspaper unit, for 12 years before moving to Dow Jones in 2007.
Hinton, 67, had worked alongside Murdoch for more than five decades. HE spent his entire career working for Murdoch, starting as a reporter at the Adelaide News in Australia. Legend has it that he used to collect Murdoch's sandwiches.
A person close to the company described Hinton as "the ultimate company man" who in recent days had come to the conclusion that someone had to take full responsibility for the hacking that occurred under his watch.
Earlier Friday, Rebekah Brooks resigned as chief executive of News International after running it since Hinton left.
News Corp. has faced unyielding political and investor pressure from the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World that has undermined Murdoch's media empire on both sides of the Atlantic.
The 43-year-old Brooks, a former editor of the News of the World and of the flagship tabloid the Sun, was a close confidante of Murdoch, and has been under intense pressure to step down from her role since the phone-hacking scandal began last week.
She served as the first female editor of the News of the World between 2000 and 2003, the time of the most explosive allegations, before heading News International's four British newspapers.
Brooks has been the target of intense anger over the past week as she kept her job while hundreds of News of the World employees were let go when the newspaper shut its doors.
"As chief executive of the company, I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the people we have hurt and I want to reiterate how sorry I am for what we now know to have taken place," Brooks said in an email to colleagues, which was released by News International.
"I have believed that the right and responsible action has been to lead us through the heat of the crisis. However my desire to remain on the bridge has made me a focal point of the debate. This is now detracting attention from all our honest endeavors to fix the problems of the past," she said.
Throughout the scandal, Brooks has denied knowledge of illegal behavior at the paper. She will be replaced by Tom Mockridge, the head of News Corp.'s Sky Italia division.
News International is accused of hacking into the phones of some 4,000 people, including that of a missing schoolgirl who was later found murdered and those of the families of fallen soldiers.
The storm that followed last week's revelations knocked billions off the value of News Corp., scuttled its ambitions of taking full control of lucrative British Sky Broadcasting and radically changed the power balance between U.K. politicians and the feared Murdoch press.
'We are sorry'
Also on Friday, the company announced that Murdoch will take out a full-page ad in all Britain's main national newspapers to apologize for the hurt caused by "serious wrongdoing" by journalists at his now-defunct News of the World.
Signed by the media mogul, the ad says News International is "deeply sorry for the hurt" caused to phone hacking victims. It adds "we regret not acting faster to sort things out."
The apology stands in stark contrast to an interview the media mogul gave to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, where he called some of the accusations against the company's papers "total lies."
After news of the apology was released, Murdoch met with the family of the murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked by the News of the World.
As the scandal unfolded, he vigorously defended Brooks in the face of demands from politicians that she step down, and had previously refused to accept her resignation. Last weekend he flew into London to take charge of the response to the mushrooming phone scandal. Asked by reporters what his priority was, he gestured to Brooks and said, "This one."
But there were increasing signs that support for Brooks from inside the Murdoch family was weakening. Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert's daughter, reportedly used an expletive to say that Brooks had seriously damaged the company, the Telegraph newspaper reported Friday.
The company's second largest shareholder, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Alsaud, also appeared to call for her resignation in an interview Thursday evening with the BBC, saying he "will not accept to deal with a company that has a lady or a man that has any sliver of doubts on her or his integrity."
Prime Minister David Cameron has appointed a judge to conduct a sweeping inquiry into criminal activity at the paper and in the British media.
Brooks agreed Thursday to answer questions next week from a U.K. parliamentary committee investigating the phone hacking and police bribery scandal that is consuming British media and politics. The news came just a day after Murdoch and James first refused, then agreed to appear before the lawmakers, after the committee raised the stakes by issuing formal summonses to them.
The news of her resignation was greeted with relief.
"It is right that Rebekah Brooks has finally taken responsibility for the terrible events that happened on her watch, like the hacking of (murdered schoolgirl) Milly Dowler's phone," said opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, who had been demanding that she quit. "No one in this country should exercise power without responsibility."
"(It is) the right decision," said Steve Field, a spokesman for Cameron who had also called for Brooks to resign.
Murdoch: 'Total lies'
In his first significant statement on the crisis, Rupert Murdoch condemned some of the allegations made against his newspapers as "total lies" and admitted he was "getting annoyed" in an interview published in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
The comments came as sources said that the FBI had opened an investigation into allegations that News Corp. sought to hack into the phones of Sept. 11 victims.
Murdoch told the Journal that he wanted to deal with "some of the things that have been said in Parliament, some of which are total lies."
Murdoch, 80, told the paper he was "getting annoyed." However, he added, "I'll get over it. I'm tired."
He defended the handling of the affair by his son James, who is chairman of News Corp.'s British arm News International, saying "I think he acted as fast as he could, the moment he could."
The company dealt with the crisis "extremely well in every way possible," making just "minor mistakes," Murdoch said.
"When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right," he added.
'Strongest possible denial'
He said any damage to the company was "nothing that will not be recovered," and dismissed speculation that it might sell off its newspapers as "pure and total rubbish."
"Give it the strongest possible denial you can give," he told the Journal.
News Corp. will set up an independent committee to investigate improper conduct, with the committee headed by a "distinguished non-employee," Murdoch told the Journal. He said the committee will look at charges of impropriety and put together protocol for behavior for new reporters.
The political pressure over phone hacking allegations at one of Murdoch's British newspapers forced his News Corp. media conglomerate to abandon its $12 billion bid for 61 percent of pay-TV operator BSkyB it does not already own.
For current and former News International executives, the possible end of News Corp.'s ownership bid of BSkyB could be the least of their worries, given the threat of criminal charges if they are found guilty of obstructing police inquiries.
News International owns the influential Sun tabloid newspaper and the high-brow Times and Sunday Times.