The 30 Year Nightmare - Much Murdoch in the Mire.

The deflation of the Murdoch Empire is simply another sign that the power balance has tipped away from the capital-intensive print era's global dinosaurs and despots to the digital us. Enough sheer information became available this year to enough people, and fast enough, for them to use and share it effectively. And that has translated into mass actions from Athens last year via The Arab Revolution to The House of Commons tomorrow, where the entire political class will try to distance itself from a corpse in order to rescue its electoral credibility with a disgusted public. And since the disgust in question was directed at the marketing department for Consumerism, it is naiive to think that a few resignations and retirements at the top of NewsCorp will satisfy the growing appetite for an ethical world, or for real mass political power - neither of which are very compatible with the free-market consumerism beloved and represented by Rupert Murdoch's glad methods.
Given that shifts in technology always result in shifts in power, the shock events of this year were inevitable. The ability of the masses to form a rapid consensus on any issue and 'toxify' any offender is a form of democracy in its infancy, but one which is doing a better job of keeping a check on a global media corporation than any government or police force in the last 30 years - which now seem like a nightmare.
Murdoch & Co are still dithering about whether to face up to the Culture and Sport Committee next week, after initial reports they would attend, making the TV event of the decade. If he does go, he will either come across as a batty old man led up the garden path by his idiot son and the rest, and the shares will plummet. Or he will come across as the bully everyone now suspects, and the shares will plummet. Unless he has a magic rabbit up his sleeve that clears him of blame, in which case, why wait so long?