BSkyB Bid Bombs

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Murdoch Drops Bid to Purchase a Satellite Giant,” describes the inevitable demise of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in its attempt to obtain a majority share of British Sky Broadcasting, popularly known in Great Britain as BSkyB. The reversal comes in the wake of the organization’s cellphone hacking scandal in which it illegally tapped into a wide number of phones including the police, political potentates and a murdered 13-year old girl, Milly Dowler.

Many describe the withdrawal of the bid as only temporary as Rupert Murdoch backs down until the anger in Great Britain subsides. Meanwhile, other strategies include spinning off the newspaper section of his company to protect the rest of the media empire from the allegations swirling around the now-defunct News of the World, a 100-year plus organization at the center of the scandal.

Mr. Murdoch, now an 80-year-old gentleman, appears to have no shame. His U.S.-based Fox News is responsible, to a large degree, for the polarization in the United States now affecting the debt talks in Washington. And while this may seem a stretch to some, it is Fox News that largely abetted the Tea Party in its formative stages, and these reality-denying conservatives are the ones in Washington now largely responsible for the deadlock.