Tom Mockridge resigns as chief executive of News International Tom Mockridge had been brought in to head News International in the wake of the phone-­hacking scandal. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images Tom Mockridge has resigned as the chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International after being passed over for the job of leading a new worldwide publishing arm, which will instead be headed by Robert Thomson, the current managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. Confirmation of Thomson's appointment as well as other details about the new company which is being spun off from News Corp, is expected to come this week according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which was attributed to "people familiar with the matter." Mockridge, the 56-year-old "safe pair of hands" who was parachuted in to lead News International following the phone-hacking scandal, after the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, had been tipped by some as the best-placed candidate for the job post. But after 16 turbulent months in which he has been credited with stabilising the operation, it is understood that he also felt it was an appropriate time to depart after publication of the Leveson report into press standards. It was only last week, on the eve of the long awaited report, that the New Zealander gave his first British interview, in which he told the BBC that statutory regulation of the press would see the state "sending people into newspaper offices to determine what is a good story and a bad story." Since joining the Murdoch empire in 1991, he has risen through the ranks from Foxtel to Star TV and most recently running Sky Italia, which he joined as launch chief executive in 2002. Its business is almost twice the size of News International's operations in the UK, in terms of staff and profits. He also has strong print credentials, having started his career in newspapers. He is a former economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, and recently oversaw the launch of the Sunday edition of the Sun. Will Lewis, the former Daily Telegraph editor who has been involved in News International's management and standards committee, which has been engaged in trouble-shooting the fall-out from phone hacking, is regarded as a strong contender to take over Mockridge's post at the group's headquarters in Wapping, east London. Thomson had been regarded in some quarters as a longer shot for the post of the, as yet unnamed, new publishing operation. An Australian, like Murdoch himself, he was once described in an article in the New Yorker as "perhaps his only close friend." Thomson was a close adviser on his $5bn takeover of Dow Jones in 2007. The Wall Street Journal reported that Gerard Baker, who is currently Thomson's deputy, is expected to succeed him at the newspaper. Thomson, 51, was brought into the News Corp fold after getting to know Murdoch while he was US managing editor of the Financial Times. Murdoch made him editor of the Times in 2002 and entrusted him with the role of managing editor of the Wall Street Journal after the buyout of Dow Jones. The split will separate the publishing assets of News Corp, including its British and Australian newspapers, from its entertainment assets, such as the highly profitable Fox News cable channel.