Another Murdoch Ally Resigns

The Huffington Post reports:

Les Hinton—a longtime ally and confidante of Rupert Murdoch, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and the CEO of Dow Jones—is resigning, the paper reported Friday. His resignation is effective immediately. He becomes just the latest corporate casualty of the phone hacking crisis which has engulfed Murdoch's News Corp.

Hinton was the head of Murdoch's British newspaper division, News International, from 1995 to 2007—the period in which employees illegally hacked into thousands of peoples' voicemails. He has also been at Murdoch's side for 52 years, since he was just 15 years old.

His departure came on the same day that the current head of News International, Rebekah Brooks, also resigned. It leaves Murdoch's son James as the last major figure connected directly to the scandal-scarred division (he runs News Corp's European and Asian holdings) not to relinquish his position.