continues today. an online report about michele bachmann suffering from frequent migraines become as headache for her campaign. would that story be written about a man? >> yank uighar quits because he says the network told him to tone it down. he'll be here and he won't be toning it down. this is "reliable sources." he looked well, 80 years old as he sat in the witness chair and hall tingly answered the questions. rupert murdoch says he runs a big company and couldn't be expected to know the details of illegal conduct at one london tabloid or precisely how it was covered up. the chief executive of news corp. went out of his way to down play his influence. >> sometimes i would say to keep in touch. i edit "the sunday times" nearly every saturday, not to influence what he has to say at all. >> perhaps the most penetrating question came from a member of parliament who wanted to know just where does the buck stop? >> do you accept responsibility for this whole fiasco? >> no. >> you're not responsible. who is responsible? >> the people that i trusted to run it and then maybe the people they trusted. >> the hearing was carried live by all three cable news networks, including murdoch's fox news and made headlines here and around the world. 80-year-old global power broker rupert murdoch called this the most humble day of his life. we watched him called to account in front of british parliament for the scandal that outraged the world. >> rupert murdoch called it the most humbling day of his life and he said he was sorry, but it wasn't his fault and he wasn't resigning. then someone hit him with a cream pie. >> boy, did cable news enjoy replaying that moment with the clown who threw the pie. joining us to examine the impact of the scandal, from cambridge, england, john burns with london bureau chief of "the new york times." in boston, paul fary from "the washington post" and in new york, vicky ward, contributing editor for "vanity fair." john burns, murdoch didn't say anything that particularly damaged him in that testimony, but he looked something of a detached ceo, did he not? >> he certainly did. it's one thing to say he only called the "news of the world" editor from time to time and asked him what's doing. it's another thing to say that five years into this building scandal, he just remained hands off. at some point or other, this shrewd, astute, tough guy you would have thought would have wanted to look into this more seriously or to tell his son who runs the british operations to look into it more seriously. the question arises, of course, did he just stay away because he didn't want his fingerprints on any of this? >> ha is a very good question. speaking of his son, paul farry, james murdoch who did much of the talking said he didn't know details of the evidence when he approved a $1.4 million settlement to one of the hacking victims who sued. two former executives came out and said no, no, no, that's not right. we told him. is this a building credibility crisis for the murdochs right now? >> yes, it certainly is. it's difficult to claim that you're paying out these large sums of money to people and then discover that there's a whole mess of these out there. that's what's going on with james murdoch. as a ceo of this division, it's his job to know and he's had several years, as john points out, to know. the fact that he didn't suggests he's either dumb or he's incompetent. >> vicky ward, you know the murdoch family. what toll is this taking on rupert? >> i think it's taking an enormous toll. it would be very surprising if it wasn't, howie. i would like to address a few things that have come out. unless you actually have worked for the murdochs, you don't know. so to take john's point about how could he not know what was going on at the "news of the world," quite frankly, rupert murdoch 20 years ago, 30 years ago, those english papers were his babies, he'd broken the print unions to basically create that empire. then he did call those -- newspaper editors all the time. but news corp. has evolved. it's become a much larger, much more global company. those newspapers create a fraction of its wealth. now i think it's quite legitimate when he says he delegated and, yes, there were problems with that, we now know, major problems. but he did delegate. i think that is a credibility statement. >> the question remains if rupert isn't responsible and james didn't know, who is responsibility? let me move on because i want to play tape for john burns about comments from fox's bill o'reilly who says of course anybody who broke the law at the "news of the world" should be punished, but he also had this to say involving your newspaper. >> but here in the united states there isn't any intrusion of the story thus far on news corp. properties, none. yet you have "the new york times" absolutely running wild with the story, front page, front page, front page, column, column, column, vicious stuff, vicious stuff. and it's all ideological, isn't is it not? >> running wild, vicious stuff, ideological? >> you're asking me, howard? nonsense, rubbish, not at all. who could deny that a scandal in one of the world's largest if not the largest media organization with influence over tens of millions of people, a scandal of this kind is not news? secondly, as for vicious and the rest of it, i just ask your viewers to go to our website and read what we've actually written about this and i think you'll find it's forensic. it's very careful. if there's any stepping over that mark, you can be sure that our editors will push us back and remind us not to do it. as a matter of fact, i would say the opposite is true. i think because "the new york times" has to worry about competition from murdoch properties like the "wall street journal," we have been especially careful to be forensic and evenhanded about this. so bill o'reilly attacking us like that is just nonsense. >> howie -- >> go ahead. >> john, with all due respect, in your own paper today there's a headline, cnn host, an ex-tabloid editor is reluctantly dragged into the phone scandal. talking about piers morgan. he wasn't reluctantly dragged into the phone scandal. he came out on his own volition on monday night and then certain assertions were made by louise mensch, a british member of parliament about what was written in his diaries. he then defended himself and said were categorically untrue and all you had to do for him to be validated was to read his book. even the british have come out and said she got it wrong. >> let's get a response from john burns. >> i think there's an edge of paranoia with what you're saying. you apparently don't want to talk about the substance of the article which gives full voice, very extensive voice and i know this firsthand because i was involved in preparing an e-mail exchange. it could only be e-mail because that's what piers morgan insisted on last night. the questions that we put to him, he answered them and answered them fully. we ran a very long story, two pages on the website, giving his answers in full. as for the reluctantly dragged in, i'm sure everybody who has been associated with this in any way, whose name has been brought up in any way, would be reluctant to be drawn into it. i think piers morgan would be the first to say, and it certainly was strongly implicit in everything he said to us on the telephone and by e-mail last night that he was very reluctant as who would not be? >> i know empirically that's not true. >> let me not so reluctantly jump in. we invited piers morgan to join us and he declined. i want to play some tape of louise mensch talking about this on cnn and morgan's very aggressive response. >> i said what i said in the committee, wolf. i'm afraid right now i'm going to say i can't comment about it outside of the committee room. >> i call on you to show some balls, repeat what you said about me and go buy a copy of my book "the insider." >> she made very specific claims. later on she repeated them even to me giving tutorials in phone hacking, how i hacked people myself. how my staff had broken stories of phone lacking. she has absolutely no evidence on any of this. she based it on what she claimed i published in my own volume of diaries. >> paul, let me let you be the arbiter. also he believes piers morgan knew about the hacking. morgan puts out that the guy has already gone to jail. how much of a problem is this for piers morgan? >> well, i don't think it's a problem because louise mensch is wrong. it is not in his book. he does not mention hacking. the whole basis of her story is incorrect. the reporter who accused piers morgan of hacking is, himself, accused of insider trading and was involved in a scandal over there in london. >> he went to jail. >> went to jail for it, convicted. just one thing about bill o'reilly and fox. fox has explaining to do as well. they are invested in this story or not invested as the case may be. they have covered the story far less than cnn has or that msnbc has. it may well be as a result of their ownership and their competitive position that they have made that editorial judgment not to cover it. >> fox has covered it a little more than in the beginning and certainly did carry the hearings. the project for excellence in journalism did a study july 6 through july 15, in the evening only, you see cnn with 130 minutes, msnbc 125 minutes and fox news with 24 minutes. vicky ward, let me ask you, the "wall street journal" mocked the moral outrage being directed at one company. news corp. saying lots of tabloids in britain engaged in all sorts of outrageous behavior. you have rupert murdoch saying this is the most humble day of his life. which will we believe? that he and management are sorry or this is being made too much of by the rest of the press? >> it's a great question, howie. i've spoken about this before. you have here a real problem. i believe rupert is sincerely, sincerely appalled and sorry that in the case of mill lee dowler which is really what brought this scandal about when it was revealed that a teenage girl's phone was tampered with in order to sell newspapers because readers might think she was still alive. >> are the critics going overboard as the "wall street journal" editorial suggests? i have only a few seconds here. >> the "wall street journal" had the right to say that i think because there are plenty of other stories in your own country, watergate, the pentagon papers, and in england the daily telegraph two years ago paid for stolen records to expose mp's stolen expenses. there is a certain complicitness in britain and here that sometimes illegal means are justified to meet the end, not when a girl has been murdered. where is the line? >> got to jump. john burns, quick final thought on whether the coverage has been a little bit overheated? >> no. i don't think so at all. i can only say again to your viewers who care about this, and i'm sure many do, please go to our website or go to copies of our print editions, today's and the last weeks and months and make your own judgment. i think you eelg see in the tradition of "the new york times" it's very, very balanced and very careful and we have said and we have said more than once that mr. murdoch deserves great credit in many respects for what he's done for british newspapering. in fact n the 1980s by confronting if unions here he may have saved "the times" of london and other titles he now owns. we have tried at every turn to be evenhanded. >> john burns, paul farhi, vicky ward, thanks very much for joining us. when we come back, the man that blew the whistle on the hacking scandal, but why did he go along in the first place. 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[honks horn] ...homes around the country. every single day, saving homes. we will talk it over... announcer: if you're facing foreclosure, make sure you're talking to the right people. speak with hud-approved housing counselors free of charge at... he was one of the first whistle-blowers in the phone hacking scandal, a reporter and editor at "news of the world" who understands the culture and at times defended it. paul mcmullen joins us from london. you didn't engage in any phone hacking yourself, knew about it, went along with it. is it morally wrong for journalists to tap into the voice mail of some celebrity or royal family member? >> well, i've always said no. my argument is if you want to have a free democracy and an open society where politicians behave well, you have to have a press that is allowed to stray into the areas of the dark arts, i.e., not the illegal area, to catch people out. fundamentally you don't go to a politician and say, hello, i'm a "news of the world" reporter, are you having an affair with your secretary while presenting yourself as a happily married man. you've got to be more clever than that, you've got to catch them. i think that's the public interest defense, that sometimes it's in the best interest of the country to have -- after all, who polices the police and who polices our politicians if it isn't a free press? >> if journalists are going to try to police politicians and the police andon'theysibity tol? >> they do, and this is -- arge. if you look at the day to day fodder of who was hacked, it's people like hugh grant and kylie minogue and nicole -- big american stars, also, but when they were in the uk. how do you justify that? i think the only justification for that is it allows the "news of the world" to be the biggest selling english language newspaper in the world. when i was there, oddly working for piers morgan who was my first boss, we sold more than five million copies a week with 12 million readers which is a substantial part of the adult population of the country. so every couple of months we did something worthy. we had a pakistan cricket scandal, caught a politician with trousers around his ankles after getting voted in as a happy married man. every couple months five million people bought that and 12 million people read that. so the important stories have massive power that they wouldn't otherwise have had. >> obviously these techniques look very different when they're employed against ordinary people who are not celebrities, not famous athletes, not members of the royal family. you mentioned hugh grant. his phone was hacked by "news of the world." he is suinging. you had a chance encounter, and he actually taped your conversation. let me play a little of that for our viewers. >> do you think it's right the only person with a decent digital scanner these days is the government. 20 years ago we all had a gone. are you comfortable that the only people who can listen to them now are -- >> celebrities themself, you justify because they're reach? >> yeah, i mean -- >> if you don't like it, just get off the stage. you don't believe celebrities have any right to privacy at all it sounds like? >> well, fundamentally. if you hire a publicist and ask him can he get me in the movies in any way possible, in the magazines in any way possible and can you get me in the newspapers in the most favorable, possible way, i think you certainly lose the public backing for when you start winging, somebody only got paid 5,000 pounds for the last movie. i think nine out of ten people who only take home 250 pounds a week in britain would happily have their messages hacked into to two two months' work and get paid 5,000 pounds. >> why did you decide to go public about the phone hacking at "news of the world"? >> first of all, sean hoare who cracked under the pressure, he did drink too much and died last week, he started it, and it was presented -- i just bought a bar in the south of england about nine months ago which is where hugh grant taped me. i was semi retiring from journal into. and the guardian presented it as a fantastic story. it was the british watergate and i was offered the chance to be part of it oovps. the whole point was, if we can label our former bosses, rebekah brooks, andy coulson who are arrested, not criminal masterminds but engaged in a media empire where criminality was rif, if that media empire got david cameron elected as the british prime minister, that's a good story. >> i have a break coming up. since you mentioned rebekah brooks and andy coulson, both former editors of "news of the world," do you have any doubt that they knew phone hacking was going on at that paperer? >> i have no doubt whatsoever. piers morgan was also my editor, but in that time in 1994-'5, it wasn't illegal. you could sit outside someone's house and tap into their phone conversations and record all of it. and also look at their messages. i need to ask a lawyer actually, is it legal for a wife to hack into her husband's phone if she thinks he's cheating? about 10% of the population of britain have done that, too sgle well ooh keep our focus on journalists. paul mcmull land, good luck with the pub. >> thanks. coming up on the second part of "reliable sources," debt talks collapse after news reports of a deal. how much of the press is continuing to spin? msnbc's yank uighar resigns with choice words for his former network. but do his charges hold up? on e, the less time i have to take care of me. that's why i like glucerna shakes. they have slowly digestible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes, which can help lower a1c. glucerna products help me keep everything balanced. [ golf clubs clanking ] [ husband ] i'm good! well, almost everything. [ male announcer ] glucerna. delicious shakes and bars. helping people with diabetes find balance. but i did. they said i couldn't fight above my weight class. but i did. they said i couldn't get elected to congress. but i did. ♪ sometimes when we touch ha ha! millions of hits! [ male announcer ] flick, stack, and move between active apps seamlessly. only on the new hp touchpad with webos. john boehner may have walked out of the debt talks on friday night. it was president obama who seesed the bully pulpit when he walked into a briefing room full of reporters and spoke about how the seemingly endless impasse is being covered. >> for us to not be keeping those folks in mind every single day when we're up her