Brooks resigns from News International
Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International, has resigned amid the phone-hacking scandal that saw the closure of one of Britain’s most popular newspapers, the News of the World. She will be replaced by Sky Italia chief executive Tom Mockeridge.
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"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," said Brooks in a message sent to staff announcing her resignation. "This is now detracting attention from all our honest endeavours to fix the problems of the past."
Calls had been mounting for Brooks, 43, to quit after it emerged that during her editorship a private investigator working for the paper allegedly hacked into the phone of a murdered teenager. The move gave her family false hope she was alive.
Brooks has denied all knowledge of phone-hacking during her time at the paper’s helm. She said her resignation would allow her to concentrate “on correcting the distortions and rebutting the allegations about my record as a journalist, an editor and executive."
Brooks added she would now have the time to "give my full cooperation to all the current and future inquiries, the police investigations", as well as the appearance before a committee of British lawmakers on Tuesday.
Brooks, Rupert and James Murdoch have agreed to testify to parliament's media committee over the hacking scandal amid fierce pressure from lawmakers.
Meanwhile, the FBI says it is looking into claims that News Corp employees may have targeted the phone records of September 11 victims.
The furore among the British public and politicians over the hacking allegations forced media mogul Murdoch to withdraw his controversial bid to take full control of the hugely profitable satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
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