Following a week of speculation, News International CEO Rebekah Brooks stepped down today (joined later in the day by Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton) as the beleaguered Murdoch family battles to defend its media interests.

News Corp. didn't include her resignation statement in the press release announcing that Sky Italia CEO Tom Mockridge would move over within News Corp. to take over her role, although the Guardian posted her memo to employees.

“As chief executive of the company, I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the people we have hurt and I want to reiterate how sorry I am for what we now know to have taken place," Brooks told staffers.Continue reading...

Just when it seems that things couldn't get any worse for Rupert Murdoch...

News Corp. is now being investigated by the FBI for allegedly attempting to hack into the phones of 9/11 victims, as the front page of the Wall Street Journal writes this evening. The New York Times also reports that the company has retained a "top criminal defense lawyer," Washington-based attorney Brendan Sullivan, as it faces recriminations in the US.

The media titan and his son James, who oversees News Corp.'s European operations, also reluctantly (after initially refusing, and then being threated with jail) agreed to appear before a British parliamentary panel next week to answer questions about the phone-hacking scandal.

In his first major interview since closing the News of the World — with, naturally, his flagship US publication, the Wall Street Journal — Murdoch defends his son, admits that "minor mistakes" were made, denies that asset sales are under consideration, and rejects claims made by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.Continue reading...

The reaction to the latest twists and turns in News Corp.'s phone hacking scandal — which yesterday compelled Rupert Murdoch to withdraw his BSkyB bid, and today led him (and son James) to decline to testify? (Update: they've agreed to testify.)

Naturally, it runs the gamut from mocking (such as the eBay UK listing above), the cultural (musician Billy Bragg expressed his feelings about Murdoch's tabloids in song), to social media outrage (one prominent tweeter: former deputy Labour leader John Prescott). 

The story is also making waves in Murdoch's adopted homeland of America. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is calling for a US inquiry, while Hugo Dixon, Editor of Reuters Breaking Views, told the BBC that "politicians in America are starting to beat the drum."

Update: this afternoon comes word that the FBI is investigating News Corp. following allegations that 9/11 victims were targeted.Continue reading...

The closure of the News of the World on Sunday wasn't the end of Rupert Murdoch's media woes.

The homepage of the Guardian (above) shows the latest revelations in the phone-hacking scandal, which has widened to include other Murdoch-owned titles and additional targets, including former British prime minister Gordon Brown (and his family), the Royal Family (with Prince Charles' phone calls to now-wife Camilla believed to be hacked), and the news that News Corp. has withdrawn its plan to spin off Sky News as part of its $12 billion bid to assume control of BSkyB.

That BSkyB bid now faces a potential six-month review in the wake of fresh allegations including the attempted hacking of British 9/11 victims' cellphones to retrieve their final frantic messages, and the revelation by Scotland Yard that Murdoch's Sun reporters ferreted out details about Gordon Brown's disabled son from his medical records, among other crimes.Continue reading...

As News Corp. faces fresh allegations that phone hacking was more widespread than previously thought at News of the World, Rupert Murdoch's embattled "red top" tabloid has published its last issue, the production of which was played out over its Twitter feed.

Murdoch is fighting to defend his management team and keep institutional investors such as the Church of England from withdrawing support that would hinder his other titles, not to mention his BSkyB deal. The newspaper's former editor, Andy Coulson, was arrested Friday, as attention turns to News Corp. exec Les Hinton, Murdoch's "lifelong lieutenant and closest advisor," as the Guardian puts it.

Click below to see NotW's final cover, featuring its more provocative exclusives over the years, and check out its website and this video to see the newspaper's own tribute to its 168-year history.Continue reading...

In shocking news today, Rupert Murdoch is folding The News of the World — the 168-year-old newspaper with the highest circulation of any newspaper, anywhere.

The British tabloid is at the center of a phone-hacking controversy that was broken by rival newspaper The Guardian, a scandal that has rocked the UK, been hotly debated in the British parliament, besmirched the Murdoch family name — son James delivered the news, via the company's Sky News channel — and challenged the integrity at the heart of Murdoch's farflung News Corp. media empire.

"Recent allegations of phone hacking and making payments to police with respect to the News of the World are deplorable and unacceptable," stated Murdoch in a statement published on the newspaper's online homepage, above. "We are committed to addressing these issues fully and have taken a number of important steps to prevent them from happening again."

The upcomimg Sunday edition of News of the World will be its last, with proceeds from the edition's sales going to charity as the company shifts into crisis mode to address charges that the so-called "red top" authorized hacking into mobile phones, including not only celebrities such as Hugh Grant, but those of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and families of 7/7 bombing victims.Continue reading...

Since News Corp. acquired Dow Jones and the crown-jewel Wall Street Journal nearly four years ago, the world has undergone a financial meltdown, the Great Recession socked media spending in the key United States market, and the entire American newspaper business has gone into meltdown mode.

And, oh yes – the rival New York Times has only begun to figure out how to monetize its own content online with its recent paywall introduction, several years after The Journal successfully blazed paywall trails.

Through all of that, the venerable Journal has kept on piling up success. It is the one notable exception to the continued black hole of circulation declines at major U.S. newspapers; the paper posted an 8% increase in circulation revenue for the first quarter, its 17th straight quarter of year-over-year growth.

Print ad and overall revenues also have been rising, adding yet other unique achievements to what the Journal has been able to accomplish while adjusting to new ownership and one of the most disruptive economic periods in the publication’s long history.Continue reading...

While eyes remain on the impact of the recent tsunami that devastated Japan, the latest State of the News Media report from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism describes another kind of tsunami — digital news.

This year's overview of the major trends impacting American journalism brings bad news for news organizations because "in the digital realm, the news industry is no longer in control of its own future."

While some may think the media has been obsessed with fretting about its own death, on the business side major media brands haven't done enough to adapt to digital, mobile and social media.Continue reading...