THE world's pre-eminent media baron, normally in the spotlight for his voracious acquisitions of major media properties, is now embroiled in news of a very different kind. Rupert Murdoch's News of the World , the UK's largest-selling newspaper, has been brought down by evidence that it hacked into the voicemail of a 13-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in 2002, deleting messages to make room for new ones and hence hampering the investigation. While the paper's journalists had been under scrutiny for some time for hacking into the phone messages of public figures, a slew of new revelations have created a public outcry. Mr Murdoch has now declared he will shut down the paper, but even that is being seen as a move to enable his takeover of television company BSkyB.

No one can argue that Mr Murdoch is not a shrewd businessman: from his starting point in Australia he has gone on to take over some of the US and UK's most prized media outlets. But along the way he has drawn criticism for combating unions, courting political influence and promoting tabloid journalism at the expense of responsible reporting. This last tendency clearly went a bit too far, and even one of the world's largest and most influential media conglomerates could not get away with the flagrant abuse of both ethics and the law in its pursuit of private information. Of even broader concern are charges by British opposition leader Ed Miliband that the UK's Press Complaints Commission is a “toothless” watchdog for its failure to catch the misconduct earlier. The News of the World 's story should be a cautionary tale that the size and influence of media organisations should not become a reason not to hold them to the highest standards of ethical journalism.