Murdoch accuses NoW staff of cover-up Rupert Murdoch reacted angrily to an allegation at the Leveson inquiry that News Corp had tried to cover up the UK newspaper ethics scandal, saying instead that executives inside its News of the World tabloid title had kept the full extent of phone hacking from his company. The News of the World was "an aberration," Mr Murdoch said, "and it's my fault." The scandal would be "a blot on my reputation for the rest of my life," he said. The chairman and chief executive of News Corp told the inquiry "I failed" in failing to follow up the arrest and conviction of the tabloid's royal reporter in 2007, but he was provoked by accusations of an attempt to hide the extent of the scandal. In an atmosphere of high tension, Robert Jay, QC, counsel for the inquiry, asked Mr Murdoch about efforts by News Corp lawyers to investigate what happened, which failed to uncover the culture of illegal information gathering at the Sunday tabloid. Mr Jay said: "Some might say that all [of] this approach is consistent with one of a desire to cover up rather than a desire to expose." Mr Murdoch shot back: "Well, minds like yours." There was a slight gasp in the inquiry room and Sir Brian Leveson, chairman of the tribunal, uttered: "Oh. Oh. Mr Murdoch quickly said: "I'm sorry. I take that back. Mr Jay said: "Don't worry, Mr Murdoch, I am quite thick skinned." Sir Brian intervened to rephrase the question, asking why Mr Murdoch, with his own interest in newspapers, had not been curious to discover how one of his reporters, Clive Goodman, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private detective, had come to be hacking mobile phones. It prompted Mr Murdoch to make a flat statement: "I failed." He agreed with Mr Jay that he should have then taken personal charge of the investigation into the affair rather than leaving it to Les Hinton, his right-hand man for 50 years who had been executive chairman of News International at the time of the arrests. Asked where the "culture of cover-up" came from, he said it was from a few people who were trusted by News of the World reporters and who instructed not to report the offences to more senior people including Rebekah Brooks, who succeeded Mr Hinton, and Mr Murdoch's son, James. He criticised Colin Myler, the former editor of the News of the World, and said it should not have kept the same in-house lawyer - thought to be a reference to Tom Crone - for 20 years. Mr Murdoch said on his second day in front of the inquiry into press practices that he closed the News of the World in a panic, but wished he had done it earlier, saying that any investment in assuring high ethical standards was "peanuts" compared to the "hundreds of millions" of dollars that the phone hacking scandal had cost him. Mr Murdoch snapped his fingers to demonstrate the speed with which he had taken the decision, with his son James and with Mrs Brooks, who stepped down as chief executive of his UK newspaper group last July. He expressed remorse for the phone hacking scandal, saying that after the jailing in 2007 of Clive Goodman, the Sunday tabloid royal correspondent who News Corp long maintained was a "rogue reporter," he should have stepped in himself. Goodman had, unknown to the outside world, complained that he had been unfairly dismissed because hacking had been rife in the paper. I should have gone in and kicked all the lawyers out and sat down in a room with [Goodman] and listened to him. And if I had believed him, I would have torn the place apart," Mr Murdoch said. Under intense questioning by Mr Jay, Mr Murdoch reacted crossly to accusations had himself set the tone of "ends justify the means" journalism. He said it had become "something of an industry" for other newspapers to attack him since it was revealed last July that the News of the World had hacked the mobile phone of Milly Dowler, the murdered Surrey schoolgirl. "Other newspapers used it as an excuse" to launch accusations against him, he said. Mr Murdoch assaulted the reputations of several well-known UK newspaper figures, saying he had been "shocked" at what he said was an admission by Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers, that the Daily Mail's editorial policy was now driven by commercial considerations. Mr Murdoch, 81, rejected Mr Jay's contention that Mr Dacre had not said this, as did a lawyer for Associated. The chairman and chief executive of News Corp said he had done so much work now to clean up his group that "we are a new company now, altogether." But he also accepted that the ethical tone of a company was often set by its chairman.