From Crusading Guardian To Media Frenzy: Why Rupert Murdoch Should Be Worried

The Guardian
Michael Calderon
HuffPost
First Posted: 6/07/11 12:21 GMT

NEW YORK -- If News of the World reporters and private investigators had only illegally snooped on Sienna Miller and the Royal Family, the nearly five-year-old phone hacking scandal might have dragged on another five years without Rupert Murdoch, or one of his top lieutenants, taking the fall.

But it's looking increasingly unlikely that the 80-year-old News Corp. chief will get through this gathering media storm without throwing someone overboard. That's because the Guardian broke the news Monday that journalists allegedly intercepted messages from the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler during the agonizing months in which her family held out hope she was alive. Mild scoffing at Fleet Street shenanigans run amuck quickly turned into outrage. And the long-simmering tabloid scandal reached a boil Tuesday as the public and press finally got on the same page and demanded answers.

Now with rival news organisations churning out damaging follow-ups, readers voicing their disgust and advertisers dropping out, it’s no surprise that politicians feel compelled to jump in the fray.

Prime Minister David Cameron took a break from his Afghanistan trip Tuesday to condemn the “really appalling” allegations regarding the 13-year-old girl abducted in 2002. "If they are true, this is a truly dreadful act, and a truly dreadful situation," Cameron said. Meanwhile, Labour leader Ed Miliband called Tuesday for a public investigation and said that British journalism has had “one of its lowest days." He added that Rebekah Brooks, the tabloid’s top editor in 2002 and now chief executive of Murdoch’s News International, needs to “consider her position.”

(More here.)