Rupert Murdoch, Phone Hacking | 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....

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.

Murdoch was smiling at the end of the day Thursday after News Corp. announced a profit increase that dwarfed their scandal-related expenses.

If the phone hacking scandal gripping Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. empire has a familiar ring, it might be because you've heard the story before. Scrappy outsider turns modest newspaper business into international media conglomerate. Ambition turns to hubris. Mogul dramatically falls from grace....

Rupert Murdoch blamed News of the World journalists for conspiring to cover up a culture of phone-hacking at the tabloid, saying they hid their activities from his son James and protégée Rebekah Brooks and that he personally was not paying attention.

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.

James Murdoch, the son of media titan Rupert Murdoch, testified Tuesday that he had no idea phone hacking was widespread at the News of the World tabloid and that he would have insisted the company "get to the bottom of what was going on" had he known.

Actor Hugh Grant said Monday that he believes his phone was hacked by Britain's Mail on Sunday tabloid - the first time he has implicated a newspaper not owned by Rupert Murdoch in the wrongdoing.

The phone hacking scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch's News Corp threatened to spread to other titles on Friday, as sources said a journalist at the Sun newspaper had been arrested over allegations of police bribery.

Rupert Murdoch's company says it has agreed to pay $3.2 million to the family of a murdered schoolgirl whose phone was hacked by the News of ...