Britain, Phone Hacking | featured news

Few seem to be enjoying the management meltdown at the venerable BBC more than Rupert Murdoch, the News Corp. chief whose rival British newspapers have been caught up in their own lengthy, embarrassing and expensive phone-hacking scandal....

David Cameron signed off messages to tabloid editor Rebekah Brooks with an affectionate "LOL", she told an inquiry on Friday, conjuring the embarrassing image of a British prime minister-in-waiting fawning over a Rupert Murdoch protégée.

Media baron Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday scoffed at suggestions that he wields undue political influence in Britain, called critics of tabloids "elitist" and dismissed phone hacking as "a lazy way" for reporters to do their jobs.

James Murdoch has written to the influential UK parliamentary committee investigating a phone hacking scandal to apologize and restate his own innocence ahead of a potentially damaging report that could determine his future in Britain.

Rebekah Brooks, a former top executive with Rupert Murdoch’s News International, was among six people arrested Tuesday in one of the largest police sweeps yet in the long-running phone-hacking scandal, British news media reported.

James Murdoch, the executive at the epicenter of the phone hacking scandal at his father's British newspapers, is stepping down as executive chairman of News Corp.'s U.K. newspaper arm, the company announced Wednesday.

A British lawmaker said Thursday that he and 17 others have been awarded payouts over phone hacking by the News of the World newspaper.

Actor Hugh Grant said Monday that he believes his phone was hacked by Britain's Mail on Sunday tabloid - the first time he has implicated a newspaper not owned by Rupert Murdoch in the wrongdoing.

Britain's News of The World tabloid has apologized for hacking into the phones of several public figures and offered to pay them compensation.