Murdoch puts name to ‘humbled’ apology
Her departure came as Rupert Murdoch put his name to a public apology — to be published in today’s papers — for “serious wrong-doing” at the Sunday tabloid which he closed last week.
Murdoch continued his effort to put a lid on the scandal shaking his News Corporation media empire by meeting the family of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked by the News of the World.
The “humbled” media mogul gave a “full and sincere apology” to Milly’s parents Sally and Bob and her sister Gemma at a meeting in a central London hotel, family lawyer Mark Lewis said.
In today’s adverts, Murdoch will say that he is “deeply sorry” for the hurt caused to those affected by phone hacking and will admit shortcomings in the response from the NoW’s publisher News International, which still publishes the Sun, Times and Sunday Times.
“We are sorry. The News of the World was in the business of holding others to account. It failed when it came to itself,” the ad says.
“We are sorry for the serious wrongdoing that occurred. We are deeply sorry for the hurt suffered by the individuals affected. We regret not acting faster to sort things out.”
The apology comes hours after an interview with the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal, in which Murdoch said the company had handled the crisis “extremely well in every possible way”, making just “minor mistakes”.
A second advert will appear in newspapers on Sunday and Monday, outlining the steps that News International and parent company News Corp have taken to investigate and address previous wrongdoing and prevent it from happening again.
Brooks yesterday said that she quit to avoid distracting attention from efforts to “fix the problems of the past”.
Murdoch is understood to have turned down at least one previous offer to resign, and he gave Brooks a very public show of support when he flew into London last Sunday to take personal control of the crisis.
But unconfirmed press reports today suggested his daughter Elisabeth had criticised Brooks for damaging the company, while News Corporation’s second-biggest shareholder, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, told BBC2’s Newsnight that if she was shown to be involved in wrongdoing, then “for sure she has to go”.
Cameron put pressure on her last week by saying he would have accepted her offer of resignation, and his spokesman today said the Prime Minister believed her departure was “the right decision”.
In an email to staff, Brooks said she had wanted to help steer News International “through the heat of this crisis”, but added: “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 endeavours to fix the problems of the past.”
She said her resignation would allow her the time to give her full co-operation to the police investigation into phone hacking and police bribes, the judge-led inquiry launched by Cameron, and her appearance alongside Rupert and James Murdoch before the House of Commons Culture Committee on Tuesday.
She was swiftly replaced in her position by Sky Italia chief executive Tom Mockridge.
Meanwhile, it emerged last night that British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg had a meeting with Brooks in February this year, according to a list of his engagements with media executives.
The list also features three meetings with Evgeny Lebedev, chairman of the company that owns the London Evening Standard and The Independent. They were in September and November last year, and June this year.
The Guardian newspaper has apologised for reporting that The Sun, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News International stable, had obtained information about former prime minister Gordon Brown’s son from medical records.
The newspaper printed a one-paragraph apology on page 36.
“In fact the information came from a different source and the Guardian apologises for its error,” the correction read.
The Guardian printed a front page story on Tuesday that claimed The Sun discovered Brown’s son Fraser had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis by accessing medical records in 2006, when Brown was chancellor.
Brown was “in tears” when he found out The Sun was going to run the story about his child, he told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday.
The Sun denied any wrongdoing and said the information came from a member of the public whose son also suffers from cystic fibrosis, who wanted to raise awareness of the condition.
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