News Corps publication "News of the World" faces severe allegations of bribery, phone hacking, and other unethical practices in pursuit of the next bit of juicy gossip. The icky net of this scandal reaches to the mishandled investigation of a murdered girl, the private life of the former Prime Minister, and–as usual–the Royal Family.
Attempting to staunch the damage from the outrageous revelations, Rupert Murdoch has zoomed over the UK to smooth over public relations. He has also abruptly discontinued the shameful gossip rag at the middle of this media scandal, and may be forced to rescind a negotiated corporate stake in another British media organ.
If this nothing else, the power of the press has impressed the world with its power once again. The press turns on its own just as much as it shapes, steers, and manipulates the masses. Those masses, in turn, may well dictate by their pleasure or distaste whether a newspaper, a network, or another media outlet endures.
the Once considered unassailable, Rupert Murdoch, head of a Media Empire of proportions which dwarfs the British Empire of yore, is scrambling to assuage widespread alarm and protest at his encroaching power in worldwide media. Not that a foreigner should be denied significant investment in another country's media markets, but rather that his far-reaching influence would ever immunize him from the irresponsible, if not reprehensible, tactics of his journalist agents.
Murdoch, for all his wealth and reach, may indeed by on the rocks for quite some time.