Murdoch alleges "cover-up" at News of the World; says he, other top officials were kept in the dark The senior executives were "all misinformed and shielded," Murdoch said. I do blame one or two people for that, whom perhaps I shouldn't name, because for all I know they may be arrested yet. There was no doubt in his mind, he said "that maybe even the editor, but certainly beyond that, someone took charge of a cover-up, which we were victim to, and I regret." Murdoch, 81, is arguably the most highly anticipated of the 266 witnesses to appear before the Leveson Inquiry, which Prime Minister David Cameron set up in July in response to the scandal. In a combative four-hour appearance Wednesday, he emphatically denied seeking or receiving favors from high-ranking British politicians. For years, News Corp. insisted the hacking was limited to one "rogue" reporter, Clive Goodman, who was briefly jailed in 2007 alongside a private investigator for tapping in to the voicemails of aides to Prince William. Murdoch said Thursday that when Colin Myler, currently the editor of the New York Daily News, became editor of News of the World in 2007, he was given "specific instructions," to get to the bottom of what was going on. But while Myler did introduce new regulations, Murdoch said, he "never reported back that there was more hacking than we had been told." Although Murdoch agreed with Judge Brian Leveson's description of him as a newspaper man, with ink running through his veins, he admitted that "some newspapers are closer to my heart than others." He said he was "guilty of not having paid enough attention" to the News of the World. He said the phone-hacking scandal is going to be a"blot on my reputation for the rest of my life." The scandal exploded last July, following revelations that the News of the World had illegally intercepted the voice mail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old murder victim. The discovery triggered a wave of revulsion, especially because of reports that the cell phone activity gave Milly's parents false hope that she was alive. Murdoch said he could feel the "blast coming in the window," and he immediately announced he was closing the 168-year-old tabloid. I panicked, but I'm glad I did it. And I'm sorry I didn't close it years before," he said. At the same time, Murdoch repeatedly said that he had built a "new" company, at great cost. He said that following his appearance at a parliamentary committee here last July -- where he said he was the best person to clean up his company -- the whole of the New York-based News Corp. has come under scrutiny, with his American and Australian outfits receiving a clean bill of health. News Corp. is the world's second-largest media conglomerate. In London, News Corp. has spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" and trawled through 300 million emails, 2 million of which have been flagged for closer inspection, he said. Although the company has been widely criticized for misleading the police in their initial investigations into hacking, News Corp. was now going "way beyond what the police asked," Murdoch said. The email haul handed over to the Metropolitan Police has triggered the recent arrests of several journalists at the Sun, which Murdoch said caused him great "distress"--even though, he added, it was the right thing to do. The inquiry also heard on Thursday that the media titan was "surprised" by the quantity of emails sent between a key News Corp. lobbyist and the office of British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Following testimony earlier in the week by Murdoch's son, James Murdoch, the inquiry published 161 pages of emails. They appeared to suggest that the culture office tried to smooth the way for News Corp."s $12 billion takeover of Britain's largest pay-TV provider. Hunt had been tasked with making an impartial decision on the bid, based on Britain's anti-monopoly laws. While British Prime Minister David Cameron has expressed his "confidence" in Hunt, the secretary is coming under mounting pressure from the opposition Labor party to resign. One of Hunt's aides has already quit.