A protester threw a plate of white foam at News Corp chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch today during a committee hearing in the British parliament into the hacking scandal at the News of the World.
Murdoch, 80, was not hurt and no doctor was required, though the hearing, attended by Murdoch and his son James, was briefly suspended.
News Corp was trading at $15.67 (+4.7%) on the Nasdaq index this afternoon, having earlier been as high as $15.80.
At the start of proceedings, the elder Murdoch had rejected personal responsibility for the phone-hacking and corruption scandal but, with his son, said the company was deeply sorry and intended to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Sitting next to James, who opened the much-awaited proceedings in a packed committee room at Westminster by apologising to victims of voicemail hacking, the Australian-born chief executive of News Corp interjected: 'I would just like to say one sentence,' he said. 'This is the most humble day of my life.'
He later said he was 'shocked, appalled and ashamed' when he read two weeks ago of the case that has transformed the smouldering scandal into a 'firestorm', in the words of Prime Minister David Cameron.
But asked flat out if he considered himself personally responsible 'for this fiasco', Murdoch replied simply: 'No.'
Asked who was, he said: 'The people that I trusted to run it, and then maybe the people they trusted.'
His son said they did not believe the two most senior executives to have resigned, Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton, knew of wrongdoing.
Brooks appeared in front of the committee after the Murdochs.
Brooks, who last week resigned as head of News Corp's British newspaper operations, joined her former bosses in apologising to the British parliament for a hacking scandal.
'I would like to add my own personal apologies to the apologies that James and Rupert Murdoch have made today.
'Allegations of voice intercepts, internet intercepts of victims of crime is pretty horrific and abhorrent and I wanted to reiterate that.'
Asked if she had any regrets: 'Of course I have regrets, the idea that Milly Dowler's phone was accessed by someone getting paid by the News of the World, or even worse authorised by someone at the News of the World, is as abhorrent to me as it is to everyone in this room.
'I also regret the speed in which we have found out, or tried to find out the bottom of this investigation, has been too slow.'
In London, Rupert Murdoch's car was mobbed by photographers as it arrived at parliament and then drove off again.
Dozens of people queued up to get into the hearing of parliament's Culture, Media and Sport committee to hear the two Murdochs and Brooks, until recently the three most powerful people in the British media.
Lawmakers also heard evidence from outgoing Scotland Yard chief Paul Stephenson, who quit on Sunday amid questions over the force's links with Neil Wallis, deputy editor at the News of the World when Coulson edited the paper.
Stephenson admitted that 10 members of the Metropolitan Police press office had worked at News International, the British newspaper operation of Murdoch's embattled global business, News Corporation.
With New York-based News Corp also facing a probe in the US, Rupert Murdoch reportedly engaged public relations consultants to train him for today's session.
The Murdochs initially refused to appear before the committee but relented after they were formally summoned.
News International was meanwhile targeted overnight by the Lulz Security hacker group, which replaced The Sun newspaper's online version with a fake story saying Rupert was dead.
