News International to apologise in all national newspapers

News International is to "apologise to the nation" with a full-page advert in every national newspaper this weekend, its chairman James Murdoch said today.

In statement sent to staff this morning, Murdoch said: "We will apologise to the nation for what has happened. We will follow this up in the future with communications about the actions we have taken to address the wrongdoing that occurred."

Murdoch acknowledged that the company had "made mistakes" but claimed it is now "receiving appropriate scrutiny" as well as "responding to unfair attacks by setting the record straight".

Seeking to assure readers and commercial partners that the company was effectively combating the crisis arising from the phone-hacking scandal and allegations of corruption, Murdoch outlined a series of other responses:

"We have created an independent management and standards committee and I want to emphasise its importance. The committee has direct governance and oversight from News Corporation board members and is codifying standards that will be clear and enforced.

"We made the difficult and necessary decision to close the News of the World.

"And a number of other executives have now left the company."

The News International chairman also claimed that the scrapping of News Corp's bid to take full control of BSkyB was "a strong signal that our top priority in the UK is to address the issues facing News International".

News International's embattled chief executive Rebekah Brooks announced that she had resigned this morning.

In a statement sent to staff, the former News of the World editor said she had become a "focal point" of the debate and was "detracting attention from all our honest endeavours to fix the problems of the past".

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