Rupert Murdoch's Oil Spill

Image by World Economic Forum via FlickrThe career and reputation of Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation media empire stretches worldwide, is in jeopardy because one of his newspaper's reporters went rogue in reporting the facts.

Murdoch's London-based News Of The World tabloid was suddenly shut down after 148 years, and is the subject of a criminal investigation by British authorities.  The newspaper is charged with hacking the phone records and voice mails of politicians, celebrities, the royal family, and the victims of the terror bombings of July 7, 2005.

This has resulted not just in the newspaper shutting down, but also in the resignation (and later arrest) of Rebekah Brooks, who ran Murdoch's British operation.  The publisher of the Wall Street Journal and London's police chief also quit.

Murdoch and his son James, who heads News International and is his father's heir apparent, have been in full damage control mode ever since--not unlike what happened with BP after last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Murdochs took out full-page ads in London newspapers to say they're sorry.  They met with the family of a murdered 13-year old, whose voicemails were allegedly deleted by NOTW reporters.  And they apologized again to a committee of Parliament while denying responsibility for the whole affair in a dog-and-pony show reminiscent of congressional hearings in America, enlivened only by Rupert nearly getting a plateful of shaving cream in his face had his wife Wendi not intervened.

But give them credit.  The Murdochs have yet to state that they'd like their lives back.

That's not all.  In the United States, where News Corp. stock has plummeted since the scandal hit, federal authorities are investigating whether phone messages of 9/11 victims were also hacked.  And Congress wants to launch its own hearings, though Republicans who owe their careers to Murdoch-owned Fox News Channel might try to block them.

It will be interesting to see if Rupert and James Murdoch are still running News Corporation after this scandal subsides.  The alleged tactics employed by some of their reporters who work at their various media interests threaten to override the credibility of more mainstream journalists, resulting in crackdowns by governments who may or may not have First Amendment-type protections.  Whether the Murdochs allowed this kind of behavior or not doesn't matter.  They've given journalism a bad name, which is exactly what it doesn't need right now.