WSJ publisher Hinton, also Dow Jones CEO, resigns

Les Hinton, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and the CEO of parent company Dow Jones & Co., resigned Friday amid questions about his involvement in the News Corp. phone hacking scandal.

Hinton’s goodbye e-mail to the staff of the paper states:

Many of you will be aware by now that I resigned today from Dow Jones and News Corp. I attach below my resignation letter to Rupert Murdoch.

It is a deeply, deeply sad day for me.

I want you all to know the pride and pleasure I have taken working at Dow Jones for the past three-and-a-half years. I have never been with better, more dedicated people, or had more fun in a job.

News Corp under Rupert’s brilliant leadership has proved a fitting parent of Dow Jones, allowing us to invest and expand as other media companies slashed costs. This support enabled us together to strengthen the company during a brutal economic downturn, developing fine new products – not to mention one of the world’s great newspapers led by one of the world’s great editors, my dear friend and colleague Robert Thomson.

However difficult this moment is for me, I depart with the certain knowledge that we have built the momentum to take Dow Jones on to ever greater things.

Good luck to you all and thank you.