Chair of Dow Jones, close Murdoch ally, quit today. And, it’s crisis PR time.

A major development in the Murdoch empire's phone hacking scandal today:

Les Hinton, the chairman of Dow Jones, announced his resignation on Friday, joining Rebekah Brooks, the embattled chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper operations, in the exodus of top officials from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

Mr. Hinton, a long-time confidant of Mr. Murdoch, ran News International, the British publishing subsidiary of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation from 1997 to 2005, during the time when the phone hacking that touched off the scandal took place.

Hinton has worked with Murdoch for 52 years. And, this means the scandal is impacting Murdoch's U.S. based operations. Let's see where the FBI investigation leads.

And, even the mighty need help. Apparently, a crisis public relations firm has been hired:

The public apologies seemed to follow News Corporation’s acknowledgment that it had hired the public relations firm Edelman to handle the crisis. It appeared to reflect a strategy to tamp down a scandal that has already forced the closure closing of The News of the World, a tabloid, and the collapse of a $12 billion bid to assume full control of Britain’s biggest satellite broadcaster.

The head of crisis management at the firm, Mike Seymour, declined to comment on any work for Mr. Murdoch’s company, saying “I’m sure you understand.”

Can't wait for the next shoe to drop. Pretty soon, there's not going to be any top execs left to fire except Murdochs.