It's scary that one man could assume so much power in the media. It's getting to the stage where Murdoch really does control much of the news reality in the UK and beyond. We can also see that he's not afraid to use that power - his newspapers such as the Sun are increasingly partisan and glaringly pro-Conservative, while the Fox networks affiliation with the Republican party is also well known. His dodgy dealings with the takeover of MySpace are another of the warning stickers when considering his contentious affairs. He shouldn't be allowed to takeover BSkyB when considering the current state of affairs.

Has the person who wrote this actually read the NYPost? The only thing making it a fixture is the convenience of its owner as it relates to the story.

On a list of 100 daily periodicals by circulation, it ranks 95th. Not exactly jumping off the page in influence.

Poking their noses into the medical records of a sick child was really beyond the pale, and I think most right-thinking people have no hesitation in saying good riddance to bad rubbish. The Browns had a right to privacy on such a matter, there was no publich interest issue at stake, just a vulgar race to the bottom.

I, for one, wouldn't be sad if his entire stable of papers dropped off the face of the planet!

Irish Silver

A key US senator has called for an investigation into whether any of News Corporation's organisations in the country have hacked US citizens.

Senate commerce committee chairman Jay Rockefeller has asked the authorities to investigate if any journalists working for Rupert Murdoch had targeted US citizens, and warned of "serious consequences" for the media group if that were the case.

The Democratic senator is the first noteworthy figure in Congress to call for an investigation into the phone-hacking scandal, which on Sunday resulted in the closure of the 168-year-old News of the World after the paper was accused of hacking into the phones of murdered teenager Milly Dowler and the families of British soldiers killed in action, as well as celebrities and politicians.

Murdoch is a major player in the US media landscape, owning the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, Fox News and publisher Harper Collins.

In a written statement, Rockefeller expressed concern that victims of 9/11 and their families could have been targeted by News Corporation journalists, although he did not offer any evidence to suggest that may be the case.

"I encourage the appropriate agencies to investigate to ensure that Americans have not had their privacy violated," he said.

"The reported hacking by News Corporation newspapers against a range of individuals - including children - is offensive and a serious breach of journalistic ethics. This raises serious questions about whether the company has broken US law," he said.

The news comes as Murdoch faces further pressure in the UK to abandon his proposed takeover of BSkyB. MPs vote in parliament on Wednesday on an opposition motion that "this House believes that it is in the public interest for Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation to withdraw its bid for BSkyB", with a further statement expected from the prime minister, David Cameron.

GUARDIAN NEWS AND MEDIA

This is News Corporation's main face in the US, in the form of Fox News, whose hallmark has been relentless propagation of right-wing ideology. Whereas political propaganda had once been the domain of governments and political parties, Fox News is formally independent of both - though it overwhelmingly serves the interests of America's Republican Party.

In Britain, News Corporation has been creating a sort of state unto itself by corrupting the police, assuming police powers of surveillance, and intimidating politicians into looking the other way. In the US, it has behaved similarly, using corporate media power to breathe life into a stand-alone political organisation, the Tea Party.

All of this is far removed from what a journalistic organisation is supposed to do. Journalism's essential role in a democracy is to enable people to fulfill their roles as citizens by providing information about government, other powerful institutions, civil movements, international events, and so on. But News Corporation replaces such journalism with titillation and gossip, as it did when it took over the 168 year old News of the World and turned it into a tabloid in 1984, and with partisan campaigns, as it did when it created Fox News in 1996.

Not surprisingly, at Fox News, as at many other News Corporation outlets, editorial independence is sacrificed to iron-fisted centralised control. News and commentary are mingled in an uninterrupted stream of political campaigning. Ideology trumps factuality. And major Republican figures, including possible contenders for the party's presidential nomination, are hired as "commentators". Indeed, its specific genius has been to turn propaganda into a popular and financial success.

Given The News of the World's profitability, no one should be surprised if the Murdochs have been replicating their sunken British flagship's reprehensible behavior elsewhere. But, whatever else is revealed, the UK phone-hacking scandal is of a piece with the Murdochs' transformation of news into propaganda: both reflect an assault on democracy's essential walls of separation between media, the state, and political parties. The Murdochs are fusing these entities into a single unaccountable power that, as we see in Britain today, lacks any restraint or scruple.

That effort should compel us to confront an uncomfortable reality underlying both the British phone-hacking scandal, with its penumbra of appalling cruelty and wanton corruption, and Fox News, America's most popular news channel: too many people want what the News Corporation has been offering. And what too many people want can be dangerous to a civilised, law-based society.

To glimpse just how dangerous, consider Italy, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's MediaSet conglomerate has seduced broad swathes of the electorate since the 1980s with a Murdoch-like combination of insipid variety shows and partisan political theater. When Italy's postwar party system collapsed in the early 1990s, Berlusconi was able to establish his own political party, win power, and, over the course of three governments, bend laws and government institutions to serve his business and personal interests.

The News Corporation seems determined to take Britain and the US down a similar path. But now, at least in Britain, the political class is in revolt. Prime Minister David Cameron - who previously cultivated close ties with News Corporation leaders, even employing as his press secretary The News of the World's former editor, who was recently arrested for his role in the scandal - called the phone hacking "disgusting". Meanwhile, Labour leaders, who had also sought the Murdochs' favour, have vowed to block News Corporation's bid for full ownership of Britain's largest pay-television broadcaster. Whether the rebellion will jump across the Atlantic remains to be seen.

I am not convinced that he is as powerful as you make out - the public is much stronger once roused. Murdoch's people acted like an invading army in the UK including targeting the UK prime minster and the UK police investigating them. However now the truth is coming out I can assure you the UK public, police and pliticians are going to be taking Murdoch out of the game. The Sun is going down next. Give it till Christmas and you will see M will be left with just his BSkyB shareholding.

Would love to know what his troops has been upto in US - New York Times seems to have a rather good source / mole inside M's empire.

Murdoch's meltdown in the UK is going to be the media event of 2011. The anger we feel about the "industrial scale" hacking he has done of our dead soldiers is hard to describe. However if it turns out he has done it in the US too (aka your 9/11 victims & your FBI investigation) all bets are off for News Corp full stop. Good thing too.

People celebrating the fall of the Murdoch empire are being premature. The underlying structures of power which allow this sort of thing to go on are still there.
Freshpage

Power as a few Arab leaders could tell you is a funny thing - one day you have it the next you have not. Events in London are moving so fast now it is difficult to keep up. Their appearance at UK Select Committee is going to be very important indeed and remember Murdoch's do not get the questions in advance. All the politicians there will be looking to trip them up and who knows what "intelligence" they will have.