FOLLOWING the closure of News Corp.-owned British tabloid News of the World after revelations that the paper hacked the cell phones of Sept. 11 victims, murder victims and dead soldiers, Rupert Murdoch has withdrawn the company’s US$12 billion bid to take over British Sky Broadcasting, the largest satellite broadcasting company in Britain. The shockwaves of the scandal are spreading globally.

    The media baron is now focused on sorting out immediate political and legal issues faced by his company, family and staff.

    Next week, Murdoch and his son James will be called to answer questions by a parliamentary committee looking into the saga at the News of the World, which was shut down in disgrace July 10.

    U.S. politicians are taking notice, too.

    Three prominent U.S. lawmakers called on federal officials to investigate whether News Corp. broke any American laws, meaning Murdoch could potentially be battling investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.

    The scandal could contaminate News Corp.’s Wall Street Journal, one of the most respected newspapers in the United States, and Murdoch’s broader media business in the United States.

    The Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, who inherited a taste for the press from his father, is no stranger to controversy.

    He began his career aged 22 when his father Sir Keith, one of Australia’s most distinguished newspapermen, died and left his son a half share in two Adelaide papers.

    Born in Australia in 1931, Oxford-educated Murdoch had a natural flair for popular journalism and a tendency to fall out with his editors, although he spent much of his career denying he interfered too much.

    “I think that I give my editors tremendous freedom and the only people who claim that I don’t give them enough freedom now are the people who wouldn’t know how to use it,” he once said.

    There was steel beneath the boyish exterior, as the British discovered when he arrived in 1968 to buy the News of the World.

    Within a year he had added the ailing Sun newspaper, relaunching it as an irreverent tabloid.

    Circulation soared thanks to its sex-and-sensation formula and it went on to become Britain’s biggest-selling daily paper.

    But his papers were frequently accused of political manipulation, distorting the news to ensure his political allies won elections.

    His critics have called him a vulgarian and a cynic who has degraded standards of journalism by pandering to a sensation-seeking public.

    His loyal admirers have always heaped praise on him, applauding the businessman for his ruthlessness, energy, and astonishing willingness to take risks.

    In 1986, by then owner of The Times and Sunday Times as well, Murdoch moved all four newspaper titles into a heavily fortified printing plant, and sacked 5,000 workers.

    The ensuing battles with pickets outside Fortress Wapping heralded a revolution in Fleet Street, and an end to overmanning and restrictive practices.

    A television revolution followed. He went on to introduce Sky, the satellite TV service to Britain.

    Despite critics calling it downmarket rubbish, satellite dishes soon became commonplace and Sky gobbled up its rival, British Satellite Broadcasting, to become hugely profitable.

    Before long, Sky could afford to bid hundreds of millions of pounds for the television rights to Premier League football.

    In the United States, where Murdoch had bought 20th Century Fox, he won a bigger gamble still, establishing America’s fourth television network.

    Along the way, he became an American citizen to circumvent rules banning foreigners from owning television stations.

    Fox shows, like the “Simpsons” cartoon series, sold around the world, but Murdoch continued to suffer setbacks.

    In the 1980s, his empire nearly crashed when its debts mounted to a staggering US$8 billion.

    He survived to buy Star TV in Hong Kong, broadcasting by satellite to the whole of Asia.

    When the digital revolution swept television, promising many more channels, pay-per-view programs, home shopping and home banking, Murdoch’s TV stations were at the forefront.

    Married three times, he divorced his second wife, Anna, after 32 years together and tied the knot with Chinese-born TV executive Wendi Deng in June 1999.

    Last year he was ranked the 13th most powerful person in the world in a list compiled by business magazine Forbes.

    Thought to be worth around US$6.3 billion, he is ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world. (SD-Agencies)

    “I think that I give my editors tremendous freedom and the only people who claim that I don’t give them enough freedom now are the people who wouldn’t know how to use it.”

    — Rupert Murdoch

    Snapshot of an empire

    United States

    Fox Television (including Fox TV, Fox News, Fox Business, Fox Sports, FX, SPEED, myNetworkTV)

    20th Century Fox

    Wall Street Journal

    New York Post

    Community Newspaper Group

    Dow Jones

    HarperCollins

    News America Marketing

    The Daily (iPad)

    United Kingdom

    Sky News

    The Sun

    The Times

    The Sunday Times

    News of the World (closing)

    Europe

    SKY Italia

    BSkyB (39% stake)

    Sky Deutschland

    FOXTEL

    Australia

    Murdoch owns almost 150 brands in Australia’s publishing industry. A few include:

    The Australian

    The Courier-Mail

    The Daily Telegraph

    Weekly Times

    The Mercury

    NT News

    Inside Out

    Herald Sun

    Gold Coast Bulletin

    ALPHA magazine