By Kevin McCauley
News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch today apologized for the phone hacking scandal that has rocked the U.K. and resulted in the shutdown of the News of the World tabloid.
“I’m guilty of not having paid enough attention to the News of the World," he said.
"It was an omission by me, and all I can do is to apologize to a lot of people, including all the innocent people in the News of the World who lost their jobs,” he told the judicial hearing.
Murdoch said News Corp. has shelled out “hundreds of millions in dollars” for legal fees and preventative measures to make sure hacking doesn’t occur again.
The media baron called the NOTW an “aberration” and a paper that should have been shut down it down years ago due to the “culture of cover-up” that existed there.
He said NOTW reporters acted on their own, protected sources and didn’t disclose to their colleagues what they are doing. “Someone took charge a cover-up, of which we are victim to and I regret it.”
The scandal is “going to be a blot on my reputation for the rest of my life,” said Murdoch.
Murdoch also denied that he used political influence to advance the interest of his British properties.
“I never asked a prime minister for anything. I took a particularly strong pride in the fact we’ve never pushed our commercial interests in our papers,” said Murdoch.
Of his meetings with prime minister David Cameron, Murdoch said he didn’t remember discussing any heavy political things with him at all.” There may have been some issues discussed passingly.”
Earlier, James Murdoch, deputy COO of News Corp. and son of Rupert, told the inquiry led by Judge Brian Leveson that he had a “tiny side conversation” with Cameron about the company’s now abandoned $12.6B bid for BskyB satellite TV service.
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