News Corp’s Les Hinton steps down

One of the most senior executives of Rupert Murdoch’s embattled News Corporation has quit.

The resignation of Les Hinton, chief executive of the media group’s Dow Jones, was announced by the Wall Street Journal newspaper.

Mr Hinton is the most senior executive to leave News Corp since its engulfing by a phone-hacking scandal.

Rebekah Brooks – chief executive of the media group’s UK newspaper arm, News International – also quit on Friday.

Mr Hinton has worked for News Corp for more than half a century after joining Mr Murdoch’s business as a teenage cub reporter with the Adelaide News in Australia.

‘An unexpected end’

He was head of News International from 1995-2007, a period in which the News of the World was hacking phones.

In a statement, Mr Hinton, who also served as publisher of the Wall Street Journal, said: “I have watched with sorrow from New York as the News of the World story has unfolded.

“That I was ignorant of what apparently happened is irrelevant and in the circumstances I feel it is proper for me to resign from News Corp, and apologise to those hurt by the actions of the News of the World.”

Mr Murdoch shut down the Sunday tabloid last week in response to the phone-hacking scandal.

Responding to Mr Hinton’s resignation, Mr Murdoch said in a statement he and Mr Hinton had “been on a remarkable journey together for more than 52 years”.

“That this passage has come to an unexpected end, professionally, not personally, is a matter of much sadness to me,” Mr Murdoch said.

He added: “I vividly recall an enthusiastic young man in the offices of my first newspaper in Adelaide, where Les joined the company as a 15-year-old and had the rather unenviable task of buying me sandwiches for lunch.”

Mr Murdoch’s statement added: “Let me emphasise one point – News Corporation is not Rupert Murdoch.

“It is the collective creativity and effort of many thousands of people around the world, and few individuals have given more to this company than Les Hinton.”

Earlier on Friday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the resignation of Ms Brooks, who was News of the World editor between 2000 and 2003, had been “the right decision”.

Ms Brooks, 43, who had been with News International for 22 years, bowed to the international pressure piling up on the company.