Rupe’s Travails – The Stateside View

Anyone following the progress of Phonehackgate and its effects on Rupe and his troops will have no problem finding a UK based media outlet more than willing to cover events. But what of the coverage in Murdoch’s adopted homeland, the USA? Well, from the moment that it was revealed that the Dowler family had been targeted, that coverage ramped up rather rapidly.

And there are now four Senators calling for action to see whether News Corp hacked any phones in the US, with one GOP Representative denouncing Rupe for “yellow journalism”, which, freely translated, means the kind of thing that we in the UK get on a daily basis from the Express, Mail, Sun, Mirror and Daily Star. But the short answer is that, so far, Murdoch’s US empire is not at risk.

But that isn’t stopping most networks covering the story. Over at CNN, the three top entries in the “Hot Topics” list are News Corp., David Cameron, and Rupert Murdoch – all three coming in ahead of the country’s National Debt, and way ahead of the maybe-too-heavily-plugged Casey Anthony trial.

And Phonehackgate is third in the pick list over at MSNBC, and not far from the top on the front page of the Huffington Post US site (the photo of Rupe with left hand outstretched is just a little strange). And the about-turn of Rupe and Junior on appearing before the Commons culture committee is well up the list at the New York Times, too.

Meanwhile, New York magazine blogger Gabriel Sherman has some thoughts about who within the Murdoch empire might benefit from the turmoil in the UK, and has concluded that the most likely beneficiary will be Roger Ailes, who will no longer have to worry about Murdoch Junior getting in his way. And Ailes has managed one more act of loyalty to his boss.

Because the one website that, right now, is displaying no sign whatever of covering Phonehackgate, to no surprise at all, is that of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse).