This story has been updated.

On Thursday, news broke that News International, a part of News Corporation, had tapped Edelman PR to work on “general comms support and public affairs counsel.”

This morning came word that Rebekah Brooks, the protégé of Rupert Murdoch and CEO of News International, will resign her post. In announcing her resignation, she stopped short of a full apology, saying she no longer wanted to be “the focal point of debate” over the company’s future and reputation.

The move inspired Emma Gilbey Keller, a Vanity Fair contributor and wife of New York Times outgoing executive editor Bill Keller, to speculate (via Twitter):



Brooks was editor in chief of News of the World during the phone-hacking that led to the paper’s shuttering and has shaken the entire News Corp. organization.

The Guardian on Thursday said that Edelman has provided “an hoc” advice to News International since June 20. On Tuesday, the firm was formerly appointed.

News International’s management and standards committee is handling the response to the phone-hacking scandal. Edelman will work with this committee, according to The Holmes Report.

PRNewser reported that Edelman managing director of corporate affairs Alex Bigg and managing director of public affairs James Lundie will lead the assignment.

No U.S.-based offices will be involved in the News Corp. account, instead it will be handled from the firm’s London office, according to the NBC affiliate in Chicago.

News Corp. is under fire—in a court of law and public opinion—over its involvement in a phone-hacking scandal in Great Britain. The FBI announced on Thursday that it’s investigating possible hacking in the United States.

Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of News Corp., told The Wall Street Journal (a paper owned by News Corp.) that he’s “getting annoyed” by negative headlines about his company.

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