Murdoch blames rogue tabloid for phone-hacking

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Murdoch blames rogue tabloid for phone-hacking

By Kate Holton and Georgina Prodhan

LONDON | Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:18am EDT

(Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch called his News of the World tabloid an "aberration", blaming journalists for hiding a phone-hacking culture from himself, his son James and his protégée Rebekah Brooks, and saying he wished he had shut it down sooner.

Rejecting personal responsibility for a culture that allowed illegality to flourish, Murdoch painted a picture of a rogue culture at the Sunday tabloid, in an echo of his company's now abandoned defense that a single "rogue reporter" was to blame.

"The News of the World, to be quite honest, was an aberration, and it's my fault," the world's most powerful media mogul said in a second day of testimony in Britain's High Court on Thursday. "I'm sorry I didn't close it years before."

Showing frequent flashes of annoyance as the questioning became more pointed, the 81-year-old admitted he had not paid enough attention to the News of the World but did not accept that he had allowed a culture of illegality to flourish.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/26/us-hacking-murdoch-idUSBRE83N1G920120426

[think]

1. newscorp is an oxymoron unto itself /

[rustydog]

2. I love these "tough guys" who think they have total control

Condescending, rude, intemperate...until caught, then point and cry "It wasn't me!!!"

[randr]

3. In this case the crime is far worse than the cover up

Maybe Murdock thinks by confessing to the cover up the crime will go away.

[SwissTony]

4. Watched just about all of his testimony over the last two days.

And James the day before that.

God, selective amnesia is handy, isn't it?

Going further, the press people seeem to have had more problems remembering things that just about anyone else. I think it was Kelvin MacKenzie who, when asked about a meeting that would have stuck in your brain, said "I can't remember - it was 5 or 6 years ago". Five or six years, Kelvin? That is a long time.

[warrior1]

5. nobody believes that Rupert

not even you.