Two top News Corp execs quit over phone-hacking scandal

The phone-hacking scandal at the erstwhile News of the World – UK's top-selling paper till it shut down last weekend – has claimed two top heads at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, including its first US casualty.

Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of British subsidiary News International, resigned early on Friday, followed in the evening by Les Hinton, chief executive of the Murdoch-owned Dow Jones & Co, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Both resigned with immediate effect.

Murdoch had previously rejected two offers from Brooks to resign and defended her despite demands for her removal. Brooks (43) was the editor of News of the World when it hacked into the voicemails of 13-year-old kidnap and murder victim Milly Dowler's phone, sparking an outrage across continents.

Rupert Murdoch on Friday also made his first public apology about the scandal, after a meeting with the Dowler family.

News International will place advertisements in all British newspapers over the weekend "to apologize for what has happened''. Murdoch has signed the ad which says News International is "deeply sorry for the hurt" caused to phone hacking victims, of which Dowler was only one of several.

So grave is the current crisis that Rupert's four oldest children – James, Lachlan, still a board member despite quitting to run his own business in Australia, Elisabeth, whose independent production company Shine was bought by News Corp this year in a controversial deal, and Prudence, the only one without a senior position in the business – converged in London for a crisis meeting this week.