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A Scandal of Vatican Proportions
In little more than two weeks, Murdoch's News International (NI) division, the maker and breaker of British prime ministers, has been humbled, and — by extension — its US-based parent, News Corporation, humiliated.

UNDER ATTACK As her husband is pied by a protestor, Wendi Deng (bottom left corner, seen from shoulders up) prepares to defend him. Her fierceness would make her a fit candidate to clean up News Corp's mess.

As a public spectacle, Great Britain's phone-hacking controversy, which triggered the close of Rupert Murdoch's gutter-tabloid, News of the World (NoW), is particularly baroque.

In little more than two weeks, Murdoch's News International (NI) division, the maker and breaker of British prime ministers, has been humbled, and — by extension — its US-based parent, News Corporation, humiliated.

In the public eye, Murdoch is News Corp and News Corp is Murdoch, so this loss of face is punishing and public.

Murdoch is a member of an exclusive cohort. Perhaps only investor Warren Buffett and entertainment titan Sumner Redstone are in the same league. The founders of Google and Microsoft may have changed history, but they are essentially hedgehogs who knew one big thing. Redstone, Buffett, and Murdoch are foxes. They have hunted on wider and more varied terrain. Buffett and Redstone have suffered their own reversals, but never a disgrace of Murdochian proportions.

The essence of the uproar is this: as allegations emerged that NoW regularly and criminally invaded the privacy of people ranging from celebs to a murdered child, NI was forced to scuttle a $12 billion cable-television deal.

This, however, is just the overarching narrative. Each granular development seems worthy of its own banner headline.

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