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WSJ Publisher, Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton Resigns

He's the latest casualty of Rupert Murdoch's phone hacking scandal

By the Associated Press

Posted Jul 15, 2011 4:12 PM CDT

(AP) – Rupert Murdoch accepted the resignation of the Wall Street Journal's publisher today as the once-defiant media mogul struggles to control the escalating phone hacking scandal. The controversy claimed its first victim in the United States as Les Hinton, chief executive of the Murdoch-owned Dow Jones & co. and publisher of the WSJ, announced he was resigning with immediate effect. Murdoch's British lieutenant, Rebekah Brooks, stepped down earlier today.

Hinton has worked for Murdoch's News Corp. for 52 years and is one of the media baron's staunchest allies. He was chairman of Murdoch's British newspaper arm during some of the years the abuses took place, but testified to a parliamentary committee in 2009 that he had seen no evidence phone hacking had spread beyond a single jailed reporter. "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 apologize to those hurt by the actions of News of the World," he said.

This image made available by News International in London, July 15, 2011, is of an ad that will run in Saturday's Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Sun and Times.
This image made available by News International in London, July 15, 2011, is of an ad that will run in Saturday's Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Sun and Times."   (News International)
This Dec. 3, 2008 file photo shows Les Hinton, Chief Executive Officer of Dow Jones & Co., in his New York office.
This Dec. 3, 2008 file photo shows Les Hinton, Chief Executive Officer of Dow Jones & Co., in his New York office.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 10 comments
MacGardner
Jul 20, 2011 4:58 AM CDT
What's that old song "and another one bites the dust"........The WSJ had become a political hack rag for Murdoch. Maybe they will become more objective in their reporting.???? Naw, not a chance.
Observer
Jul 16, 2011 9:12 AM CDT
Fall on your sword for the King - you stupid lying asswipe. Go back to your manor house and yacht you prick.
brawne
Jul 16, 2011 12:08 AM CDT
Ouch--under the bus.  Seriously, how many of you knew that the Dow Jones was owned by the same family that owned the Wall Street Journal--the bannermans?  Before Rupert stepped in and ripped that family apart.  Know the wickedest family in this country ever, ever? A family that never let anyone in like Rupert, but that girl that played the daughter on Air Force One--the film--she ripped the denial off her family for the first time in 80 years.  Lisele--that's her name.  She settled for 500 million.  From her own family and she was 18.  And that was chump change.  Pritzker--her name is Pritzker and you never hear it cause they got way better control than Rupert.  Lisele.  You know her aunt.  Her aunt was Obama's national fiance chair in '08.  They got more money than the Walton family.  It's just in these huge non-taxable trusts where it never adds up.  You've heard of every other robber baron--why not these guys?  Cause the first one of these guys was Al Capone's accountant.  Do I care about Al Capone--no.  Do I care that every crook with him turned their shit money into all of our biggest companies?  Yes, cause the same mindset that earned the first million is making the hundreth billion and buying your government to get it.  See--all those billionaires, they ain't like you and me.  They are special and won't pay a penny for anything unless you hold a gun to their head--that's what's so funny about Obama.  He knows that.  He'd change it if he could meaning that we all wised up and separated our government from the total dicks who elected him and will NOT elect him again cause he has no reason in a second term to do their bidding.  Go back and look at your few one term presidents.  If you'd really learn something and know it--know it there are real knowable facts--if you'd do that it doesn't matter what party you are.  You could change it.  But you can't cause everything I just wrote reaffirms the belief that you already have.  You won't be a skeptic for a moment and google everything--you just think I'm a nut.  Lisele--she was awfully cute with Harrison Ford.  And you can't even google much on them.  Way above that.  Gotta go to archives.

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