The News Corp chairman and chief executive claimed that he was “misinformed and shielded” from what was going on at the News of the World, and added that there had been a “cover-up”.
When asked where the cover-up had come from, Murdoch responded: “I think from within the News of the World.”
The media mogul went on to say that there had been “one or two very strong characters” on the Sunday paper and that they had forbidden people from talking to Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch about phone-hacking practices.
He said that a News of the World editor was appointed and told to find out what was going on, but “never reported back that there was more hacking than we had been told”. Though he did not name him, Murdoch appears to have been talking about former editor Colin Myler, who joined the paper in January 2007.
Murdoch told the inquiry that Myler “would not have been my choice”, explaining that he was the choice of Les Hinton, News International’s executive chairman at the time.
Picture: Getty
