Actor Hugh Grant has had a long-standing grudge match going with the Murdoch-owned tabloid The News of the World for some years.
In April of this year, Grant published an article in Britain's The New Statesman describing the tactics used by the British tabloid media and how each Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher has known that they can only be elected with the help and consent of Murdoch's NewsCorp, Inc. empire.
Grant had a run-in with former News of the World editor Paul McMullen in which he found out that the tabloid was listening in on his phone messages. As a retaliatory gesture, he made a visit to McMullen's pub with a recording device and got the editor on tape admitting to many of the paper's most dubious practices.
The two men met again on the BBC News Channel and while the discussion began cordially enough, it quickly escalated. Grant's parting shot to McMullen is not to be missed.
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According to our trusty online encyclopedia, News of the World was established in 1843 as one of the first "shock value" tabloids designed for working class audiences. Even then it specialized in sex scandals.
The paper was owned and edited by the Carr family from 1891 to about 1969.
The chairman of the board of the paper at the time of its sale to Murdock was William Carr.
In 1967 William Carr was identified by L. Ron Hubbard as one of roughly 12 people who "entered upon a program of bringing every government to bankruptcy and under their thumb, so that no government would be able to act politically without their permission."
Others in this group included Cecil King who owned the Mirror Group of newspapers and held a directorship at the Bank of England.
The sale of the News of the World to Murdock had Carr's blessing, so they must have been friends, or at least shared similar ambitions.
Odd that the Murdocks should be so willing now to shut the paper down. But it seems that under the leadership of Rupert's son James the media giant is putting most of its energy into satellite TV and digital media.