The Rupert Murdoch contrition tour
Rupert Murdoch is in full retreat in the growing scandal fueled by resignations of top company executives and by Murdoch's apology to a nation.
Rolling off the printing presses today, on what some have called the media magnate's day of atonement, are full-page ads in major British dailies: "We are sorry for the serious wrongdoing that occurred" in Britain's growing phone hacking scandal.
Murdoch is struggling to contain the phone hacking scandal that has entangled his company, News Corporation, and has resulted in the arrest of nine people, reports CBS News correspondent Dana Lewis.
On Friday Les Hinton, CEO of Murdoch's Dow Jones (which publishes the Wall Street Journal), handed in his resignation. Hinton ran News of the World, the paper at the center of the hacking scandal, from 1995 to 2007. That resignation came on the same day News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks also bowed to pressure to step down.
Yesterday the media mogul apologized in person after meeting the family of murdered school girl Milly Dowler whose phone was hacked by Murdoch's News of the World in 2002.
"As founder of the company, I was appalled to find out what had happened," he said.
Tom Watson, a Member of Parliament who will question Rupert Murdoch and others about what they knew at a parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday, told Lewis the apologies are late and hollow.
"Every week, every month, there's been a new revelation that they've denied and then subsequently had to admit," he said. "So it's a half-apology, I'm afraid.
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Parliamentarians said don't expect the Murdoch, his son James, or Brooks to answer any and all questions Tuesday because of an ongoing criminal investigation, but they will be pressed if they try to dodge basic probing into what they knew and when.
Lloyd Grove, editor at large for Newsweek magazine and the Daily Beast, told "The Early Show on Saturday Morning" that "there's heavy weather ahead" for the Murdochs because of the investigation into the scandal.
"We don't know what horrible things are going to be crawling out from under rocks," he told anchor Rebecca Jarvis.
Grove said Murdoch's apologies and contrition are part of an effort to save the BSkyB deal - News Corp.'s bid to purchase total stake in the U.K. satellite company, a deal that has been scuttled, for now, by the scandal.
"It fell apart for now, but Rupert Murdoch is going to try and do it at some point down the road after a decent interval because it's just too important to the economic health of News Corp.," Grove said.
The scandal is spreading from the U.K. to the United States as Congressional and Justice Department investigations into the possible hacking of U.S. citizens' phones by Murdoch employees are begun.
The Los Angeles Times noted what it called "an interesting take" on the scandal by a Fox News Channel commentator and his guest, who suggested that the media were "piling on" the Murdoch empire for something that Fox News' Steve Doocy said "happened a long time ago, at a tabloid in London, [where] somebody did something really bad."
The guest, media consultant Robert Dilenschneider, tried to equate attention given the Murdoch's papers and companies who have themselves been the victims of hacking. "Citigroup, great bank. Bank of America, great bank. Are they getting the same kind of attention for hacking that happened less than a year ago that News Corp. is getting today?"
When asked how Murdoch entities like the Wall Street Journal can cover the scandal without revealing bias, Grove said, "Well, it's a tricky thing and they know obviously they're not stupid. They know that everybody's watching just for that, and I think they've done a pretty credible job, as has Sky Television in Britain, which is controlled by News Corp. So those two entities are very important to have the image of impartiality, and I think so far they've done well on that."
When asked what Murdoch should do beyond give an exclusive interview to his own paper, the Wall Street Journal [in which he said he was getting "annoyed" by recent headlines], Grove replied, "You're almost asking me to be a crisis consultant and I don't know what Rupert Murdoch needs to do, but clearly giving an interview to the Wall Street Journal is the safest thing he could do at this point. I don't think people took it as seriously as they might have, say, if he had gone to The New York Times or the Guardian, which has done excellent coverage of all this here in Britain."
When asked what tone Murdoch may set when he speaks a a Parliamentary hearing Tuesday, Grove said, "Yes, this is his contrition tour, so he will be contrite, [as] responsive as possible given his legal exposure. It will be a whole new Rupert Murdoch, one that we haven't seen, ever, because he's trying to get the British authorities to let him do this BSkyB deal at some point down the road."