Is the end near for Rupert Murdoch?

Is the end near for Rupert Murdoch?
Protesters dressed up as Rupert Murdoch, center, with puppets of the British Prime Minister David Cameron, left, and Minister of Culture Jeremy Hunt, demonstrate outside the High Court in London in April. AP/Helen Allman
Is the end near for Rupert Murdoch?
Protesters dressed up as Rupert Murdoch, center, with puppets of the British Prime Minister David Cameron, left, and Minister of Culture Jeremy Hunt, demonstrate outside the High Court in London in April. AP/Helen Allman

Is the end near for Rupert Murdoch?

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Last month, dozens of new civil suits alleging phone hacking were brought against News of the World, the now defunct British tabloid owned by News Corp., headed by Rupert Murdoch.

Improprieties at News of the World stem back to 2005, but accusations and revelations have been steady over the past year and a half, after British authorities reopened a phone hacking investigation.

Last week, a group British lawmakers issued a report saying that Murdoch demonstrated “willful blindness” over the illegal activities of News Corp., and went on to find him unfit to rule a global company.

Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, sent a letter to the British parliament asking if their inquiry has uncovered any misconduct by Murdoch’s News Corp. in the United States.

For more insight, we reach across the pond to Henry Porter.  He’s a novelist who writes a political column for The Observer, and he’s also the London editor for Vanity Fair.