(THE CONVERSATION) — When Rupert Murdoch gives further evidence to the Leveson Inquiry this week it will mark another turning point in his public disgrace. The legal noose around the neck of News International, on both sides of the Atlantic, will also tighten, thanks to fresh revelations detailed in Dial M for Murdoch, a new book by Westminster MP Tom Watson and The Independent’s Martin Hickman.
The boss man’s appearance will stoke the sense that his media empire is responsible for something bigger and more publicly dangerous than hacking into innocent citizens’ lives. For some years, we’re beginning to see, Murdoch’s News International busily experimented with the dark arts of parallel government. It was in the dirty business of building a shadowy form of unchecked oligarchy that doesn’t appear in the textbooks. Let’s call it “mediacracy.”
