[July 15, 2011] ROUNDUP: US investigating Murdoch media empire Eds: Adds Murdoch interview with Wall Street Journal Tweet WASHINGTON, Jul 15, 2011 (dpa - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- US authorities were investigating allegations that employees of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp might have hacked into phone messages of victims or their families after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, US media reported Thursday. Murdoch's media empire is already under heavy scrutiny in Britain after allegations that high-ranking officials and public figures were the targets of phone hacking. The scandal led to News Corp's closure of the tabloid News of the World. The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and CNN reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun an investigation into the conduct of News Corp employees or associates over the possible hacking of phone calls related to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. "We are aware of the allegations and are looking into them," said a CNN source who requested anonymity. "We'll be looking at anyone acting for or on behalf of News Corp, from the top down to janitors." Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp, said in an interview with the Journal that he believed his company would bounce back from the scandal and had handled it "extremely well in every way possible," making only "minor mistakes." Damage from the crisis was "nothing that will not be recovered," he was quoted as saying by the Journal, whose parent company is News Corp. "We have a reputation of great good works in this country [Britain]." He added, however, that he was "getting annoyed. ... I'll get over it. I'm tired." He said in the interview that after first refusing to give evidence to the British Parliament about the phone-hacking allegations, he agreed to attend a session Tuesday to set straight "some of the things that have been said in Parliament, some of which are total lies." "We think it's important to absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public," he was quoted as saying. "... I felt that it's best just to be as transparent as possible." He said Hartbottle and Lewis LLP, the London law firm News Corp initially hired to investigate the scandal had made a "major mistake" in underestimating the scope of the problem, but he said he and his son James, News Corp's deputy chief operating officer, who is to also appear Tuesday before the British parliamentary committee, had acted quickly to the crisis, deflecting criticism that the response had been slow. To see more of dpa, go to http://www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html Copyright (c) 2011, dpa, Berlin Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]