Leslie Frank Hinton (born 19 February 1944)[3] is a British-American journalist, writer and business executive whose career with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation spanned more than fifty years.
[5] He was appointed CEO of Dow Jones & Company in December 2007, after its acquisition by News Corp. Hinton has variously been described as Murdoch's "hitman"; one of his "most trusted lieutenants"; and an "astute political operator".
"[13] Hinton later admitted in an interview with London's Daily Telegraph that some Journal staff were wary when News Corp bought the newspaper, but said: "If you believed everything you read about the attitude towards us that was alleged to exist, you would have been expected to wear a damn flak-jacket when you came in to the building.
"[14] In an article for British Journalism Review in 2015, Hinton described Murdoch as: "a driven businessman with heavy boots who has bruised a lot of people in the last half century.
[21] The New Yorker ran a poem praising Hinton's hair[22] In a climate later described by The Wall Street Journal as "a political frenzy"[23] on 1 May 2012, the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, chaired by Conservative MP John Whittingdale and including Labour members Tom Watson and Paul Farrelly, published a report in which it accused Hinton and others of misleading it during its enquiries into the phone hacking scandal.
But it applies to Mr. Hinton, who was CEO of our parent company Dow Jones until he resigned amid questions about his involvement in the phone-hacking scandal that took down Britain's News of the World tabloid in 2011."
The newspaper went on to say that the British Parliament's [Culture, Media and Sport] committee's false report about Hinton "should be a warning of the damage that political frenzies can do to the lives and careers of honorable men."
Hinton and his long-time partner Katharine Raymond – a former adviser to British Home Secretary David Blunkett and Prime Minister Gordon Brown – married at a private ceremony in London in 2009.
The wedding celebration was attended by politicians and journalists including Tessa Jowell, David Blunkett, Margaret McDonagh, Sarah Brown, Kay Burley, and Rebekah Brooks.