Murdoch Hacking Scandal Questions

I have a couple questions about the Rupert Murdoch phone hacking scandal, which has taken an even nastier turn.

Is there any reason to think they’re not doing this here, too?

I mean, is there something different about phones and voicemail in the UK vs the US? Are there some different legal issues at play? You know, we have missing white women and trials that capture national attention here. We have a tabloid culture here. Is there any reason to think the New York Daily News New York Post didn’t (or wouldn’t) hack into the phone messages of New York’s “cop rape trial” victim? Anthony Weiner’s wife? Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s accuser? Not to mention all of the celebrities who have already received settlements from NewsCorp for having their privacy violated?

Was all of this really the doing of just one “overzealous staffer,” Rebekah Brooks?

And is there some reason the U.S. media has done such precious little coverage of this scandal? It’s not as if Murdoch doesn’t have huge U.S. media holdings, it’s not like it’s not a publicly traded company and investors might want to know about a major scandal affecting its share price. Is there a reason we’ve heard so little in the MSM about it?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[UPDATE]:

I did not know that Les Hinton, CEO of the Dow Jones Co. which publishes the Wall Street Journal,

was executive chairman of Murdoch’s newspapers in Britain at the time when the alleged rampant hacking attacks took place.

[…]

Also, Hinton oversaw the initial News Corp. investigation into the allegations and found no evidence of widespread wrongdoing within the company. It’s an investigation that, in light of recent developments, now looks to have been incompetent at best, and a fraud at worst.

This makes the rest of the mainstream media’s silence on this story all the more puzzling and, frankly, suspicious. How much longer are you guys going to keep covering for the people who routinely trash your profession?

[UPDATE]: 2

News Of The World has been shuttered.

Let’s hope this isn’t the end of the story.

[UPDATE]: 3

Oh, woops. They’re just rebranding, not really closing.