Les Hinton, who headed News Corp.’s News International unit when the phone-hacking allegations roiling the media empire first arose, on Friday resigned as chief executive officer of Dow Jones & Co., the second major executive casualty of the scandal.

Hinton said in his resignation letter to News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch that while he was “ignorant” of the actual and alleged misconduct at the root of the scandal, he felt it was “proper for me to resign from News Corp.”

Hinton’s resignation came the same day that Rebekah Brooks, who headed News Corp.’s UK newspaper unit, News International, after Hinton, also resigned.

Hinton had come under increasing media scrutiny recently as a cascade of allegations indicated the problems at the center of the scandal were more widespread than he had twice testified to a British parliamentary committee.

In 2007 and 2009, Hinton told the committee that the company had carried out a full investigation into the matter and was convinced just one of the company’s journalists was involved.

In his resignation letter Friday, Hinton apologized to those hurt by the actions of the company’s News of the World newspaper. “The pain caused to innocent people is unimaginable,” he said.

Earlier Friday, Brooks resigned, marking the first major executive casualty in a growing tabloid newspaper scandal that has already skewered a major deal and shut the 168-year old newspaper at the heart of the controversy.

A top lieutenant to Murdoch, 43-year-old Brooks had been under intense pressure in relation to allegations that reporters at the company’s now-closed News of the World tabloid illegally intercepted cell phone voicemails and bribed police.

But criticism of Brooks grew much louder last week when an allegation surfaced that in 2002 the paper had hacked the phone of a missing 13-year-old girl who later turned out to have been murdered. Brooks was editor of the News of the World when that incident occurred, although she has denied any knowledge of wrongdoing.

News Corp. named Tom Mockridge, chief executive of Sky Italia, as her successor. The New Zealand native has been at that company since its launch in 2003 and has held other roles within News Corp.

Rupert Murdoch on Friday met with the family of the murdered teenager, Milly Dowler. Speaking afterward, he told reporters, “I was appalled to find out what had happened.”

The family’s lawyer, Mark Lewis, said Murdoch was “very humble, very shaken and very sincere” as he apologized repeatedly to the family. “He [Rupert Murdoch] said the words sorry, this should not have happened. [These were] not the standards set by his father, a respected journalist; not the standard set by his mother,” Lewis said.

Lewis said the family would “forgive but not forget” the hacking and called for “a proper inquiry, [and] proper commission to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.” The meeting between Murdoch and Dowler’s parents and sister took place in central London.

In addition, Murdoch will apologize for the News of the World’s “serious wrongdoing” in ads to be taken out in British national newspapers Saturday.

Brooks will testify at a special parliamentary committee hearing next Tuesday alongside Murdoch and his son, News Corp. deputy chief operating officer James Murdoch.

She submitted her resignation to Rupert and James Murdoch on Friday morning. It had previously been offered and rejected.

“I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the people we have hurt and I want to reiterate how sorry I am,” Brooks said in an email to staff. “I have believed that the right and responsible action has been to lead us through the heat of the crisis; however, my desire to remain on the bridge has made me a focal point of the debate.

“This is now detracting attention from all our honest endeavors to fix the problems of the past.”

News Corp. had on Wednesday dropped its bid to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC, canceling the deal hours before a vote in which Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party lined up to support a motion by the opposition Labour Party urging the company to abandon the bid.

As part of a large-scale investigation, London’s Metropolitan Police are conducting a dual probe into phone hacking and corrupt payments to police. That has involved nine arrests this year, including that of Andy Coulson, who succeeded Brooks as News of the World editor and went on to become Cameron’s director of communications, a post he resigned as the phone-hacking scandal took hold.

News Corp. also owns The Post, NewsCore, The Wall Street Journal and AllThingsDigital.

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