Post date: Apr 26, 2012 2:58:53 PM
LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (APRIL 26, 2012)(UK) - News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said he had no regrets about closing down the News of the World newspaper during an inquiry in London on Thursday (April 26).
Rupert Murdoch says the decision to close down the News of the World newspaper was made very quickly and at a time when the News Corp Chief Executive was in a state of panic.
The appearance before a judge by the world's most powerful media mogul was a defining moment in a scandal that has laid bare collusion between ministers, police and Murdoch's News Corp, reigniting long-held concerns over the close ties between big money, the media and power in Britain.
Murdoch was the first newspaper boss to visit Cameron after he took office in 2010 - entering Downing Street via the back door - and politicians from all parties have lived in fear for decades of his press and what it might reveal about their personal lives.
But on Thursday, Murdoch denied that he had ever asked politicians for favours.
"I don't ask any politician to scratch my back," he told the inquiry.
The media mogul said he had shut down the 168-year-old tabloid, the News of the World, last July in a state of panic, after revelations that the phone of murder victim Milly Dowler been hacked into.
"When the Milly Dowler situation was first given huge publicity, I think all the newspapers took this as the chance to really make a really national scandal, it made people all over the country aware of this, who hadn't been following. You could feel the blast coming in the window and, as I say, I want to say it succinctly, I panicked," he said.
However, he vehemently denied that senior management had tried to cover up phone hacking at the paper.
"There was no attempt either at my level or several levels below me to cover it up," he said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron appointed Leveson last year to examine Britain's press standards after News of the World journalists admitted hacking into phones on a massive scale to generate scoops and salacious front page stories.
The admission last year, and the revelation that journalists had hacked into the phones of ordinary people and crime victims, prompted many to question whether the police had declined to properly investigate the scandal because of Murdoch's influence.
Critics argue that staff at the mass selling Sunday tabloid felt they were above the law as their boss and owner regularly dined with the prime minister and senior police officers.