http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/world/europe/17britain.htmlJohn F Burns
July 16.
LONDON — As Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire on Saturday published full-page ads in every national newspaper in Britain under the words “We are sorry,” the government of Prime Minister David Cameron released information documenting the prime minister’s close ties to Murdoch company executives that continued even as the phone-hacking scandal grew.
The apology by Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation was a U-turn from his previously defiant handling of the crisis. The banner headline in Saturday’s editions of The Times of London read “Day of Atonement,” and it was all the more striking for the fact that it ran in the 226-year-old newspaper that is the flagship of the print empire that Mr. Murdoch has assembled in Britain over the past 40 years.
(further into story )
Nor was the crisis abating for Mr. Cameron. As presses rolled Friday night with the Murdoch bid for redemption in the “sorry” ad, and with front-page stories telling of his face-to-face, head-hanging apology to the parents of a murdered girl whose cellphone voice mails were hacked, Mr. Cameron’s aides released a diary of his meetings with executives and editors of News International.
The diary shed light on what Mr. Cameron acknowledged last week was the “cozy and comfortable” world in which politicians, the press and the police in Britain have functioned for decades, one he said had to yield to much greater public scrutiny. The diary showed that since taking office in May 2010, Mr. Cameron has met 26 times with Murdoch executives, including Mr. Murdoch; his son James, the top official of News International; and Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of the British subsidiary and editor of The News of the World, who resigned on Friday.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
