newjerseynewsroom.com

BY ADELE SAMMARCO

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

With his back against the wall after months of facing public scrutiny, FoxNews media mogul Rupert Murdoch admitted to a phone hacking “cover-up" at his flagship British tabloid newspaper defiantly stating, "This whole business is a serious blot on my reputation."

Claiming his News Corporation was the victim and not the perpetrator, the 81-year-old sheepishly apologized for not paying more attention to the scandal that has engulfed his entire media empire.

"Someone took charge of a cover-up, which we were victim to and I regret," Murdoch said at the Leveson Inquiry, an independent British probe prompted by charges of illegal eavesdropping by his reporters.

The news chief denied using the power of his press for his own personal gain.

“I also have to say that I failed," he said of the fact that he did not pay enough attention to the problem of phone hacking. He then paused a long time before finally continuing, "And I am very sorry for it."

In 2007, a private investigator and a Murdoch reporter were sent to prison for phone hacking. Since then, there have been dozens of other arrests, two parliamentary investigations and the Leveson inquiry, a judge-led panel set up by the British government.

Murdoch said he shut down his News of the World due to "panic" over a murdered 13 year old girl who fell victim to the phone hacking scandal.

"The hacking scandal was not a great national thing until the Milly Dowler disclosure, half of which has been somewhat disowned by the police," Murdoch said.

Murdoch was referring to the discovery that his employees hacked into the voicemail of the missing teen who later turned up dead.

At the time, the Guardian newspaper reported hackers deleted some of her voice mails, which misled family and friends of the victim to false hope she was still alive.

Murdoch was grilled over his media empire's lobbying of the British government and claimed he had only learned of the existence of one of the key lobbyists "a few months ago."

Murdoch said he was "surprised" at the extent of the contact by the employee, Fred Michel, with the British government as it considered a bid by News Corp. to take full ownership of British Sky Broadcasting — a bid that later collapsed due to the scandal.

"You call it lobbying, I call it seeking of information," Murdoch told the Leveson Inquiry. "I didn't see anything wrong with his activities. I was I surprised that it had gone on so long, that there were so many e-mails, yes."