Rupert Murdoch withstood intense grilling at News Corp’s annual shareholder meeting today, which focused largely on the phone-hacking scandal that is causing such an upset in the company’s financials and leadership. But among other things, Murdoch owned up to the debacle that has been Myspace.

“I made a huge mistake,” he said. “We then proceeded to mismanage it in every possible way. All of the people concerned with it are no longer with the company.” Except for himself, of course. The fact that it was a mistake and a mismanaged one at that is not news to the rest of the world, but the unmixed apology for the billion-dollar boondoggle reflects how low recent events have brought the once-proud news giant.

As you no doubt remember, the flatlining social network was sold in June to Specific Media for $35 million, representing a loss of around 94% of the site’s value as bought, and a microscopic portion of the never-realistic $6 billion at which Murdoch once valued the property.

Despite his self-deprecating words, Murdoch was described as looking “a little feisty” by the New York Times, perhaps because he is confident that the company has already shed the requisite amount of blood and profits over its practices and investments. The Hollywood Reporter has collected a number of opinions from analysts and experts, and the consensus seems to be that no immediate actions would be taken, but that clearly the company is in dire need of redirection, and the solution may take some time to formulate.

[image: Justin Sullivan/Getty]