News Corp, United Kingdom | featured news

Few seem to be enjoying the management meltdown at the venerable BBC more than Rupert Murdoch, the News Corp. chief whose rival British newspapers have been caught up in their own lengthy, embarrassing and expensive phone-hacking scandal....

Prime Minister David Cameron faced a televised grilling over the nature of his relationship with Rupert Murdoch's press group on Thursday at an inquiry that has turned into a slow-motion political disaster for the British leader.

David Cameron signed off messages to tabloid editor Rebekah Brooks with an affectionate "LOL", she told an inquiry on Friday, conjuring the embarrassing image of a British prime minister-in-waiting fawning over a Rupert Murdoch protégée.

Media baron Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday scoffed at suggestions that he wields undue political influence in Britain, called critics of tabloids "elitist" and dismissed phone hacking as "a lazy way" for reporters to do their jobs.

British prosecutors said they're considering criminal charges against 11 people in connection with a long-running police investigation into illegal newsgathering tactics at News Corp.'s British newspapers.

UK news channel Sky News said Thursday it had authorized its journalists to hack into the e-mail of individual members of the public on two occasions.

James Murdoch has written to the influential UK parliamentary committee investigating a phone hacking scandal to apologize and restate his own innocence ahead of a potentially damaging report that could determine his future in Britain.

Rebekah Brooks, a former top executive with Rupert Murdoch’s News International, was among six people arrested Tuesday in one of the largest police sweeps yet in the long-running phone-hacking scandal, British news media reported.

James Murdoch, the executive at the epicenter of the phone hacking scandal at his father's British newspapers, is stepping down as executive chairman of News Corp.'s U.K. newspaper arm, the company announced Wednesday.

A British lawmaker said Thursday that he and 17 others have been awarded payouts over phone hacking by the News of the World newspaper.