- Down goes Murdoch (sort of): News broke this morning that James Murdoch, the son of media magnate Rupert and the most prominent News Corp figure embroiled in the phone hacking scandal, would resign as director of the board of News International’s UK newspapers. He is not, however, entirely out in the cold. He’s still the deputy COO of the entire News Corp empire, which begs the question — when you have to start resigning jobs due to legal trouble and popular outrage, don’t most normal people lose the highest profile one first? Murdoch ascended to the deputy COO position earlier this year, and was thought to be the looming successor to his father atop the News Corp empire. That certainly can’t happen now, can it? (Photo by Eirik Solheim) source