The media world has been rocked by the revelations that Rupert Murdoch’s overzealous, perhaps over-terrorized employees at his wildly popular News of the World tabloid paper in the Britian did bad things. Much of this story still makes no sense to me. What sort of news value could a reporter get from hacking into cell phone conversations of a murdered girl, or the survivors of the stupid wars that this country and NATO wage in the Middle East? Of course, in the case of the poor lassie who was kidnapped and killed, it’s a matter of obstruction of justice. That’s a police matter. Now we find out that the police knew about it and were bribed by the fine folks at News International to ignore this ignominious behavior. As if lowly reporters have the money to pay private investigators to hack into cell phones. C’mon.

Is this the end of Rupert Murdoch? Hardly. We Americans should have learned by now that rich, powerful people are rarely punished for anything. As for the rest of us, “We’re just starfish on the beach,” as my friend Rod McKuen noted.

I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this. This culture has crossed the Rubicon. These days, reform, redemption and remorse are about as remote as the planet Tralthalmador. (No, that’s not Thermidor – I remember lobster thermidor, it’s from another era when things seemed so much more innocent. That is, when no one considered the thought that we could cripple our hearts with outrageously high cholesterol. Ah, but I digress.)

But it would be naive of me to suggest that the old days of newspapering were always aboveboard, always ethical. I can just hear William Randolph Hearst. If he had the Murdoch technology, I’m sure Hearst would have said, “Damn! How come I didn’t think of that?”

The bad feeling resides in my suspicion that Murdoch’s decision to kill The News of the World purposely put those staffers who had nothing to do with this vicious caprice out of work. Murdoch knows that big newspapers don’t have much of a future. It’s the electronic age. It’s the social network era – though much of it is evidently antisocial. The online dimension makes it pretty easy for bad people to do bad things. I said it before, if the Nazis had Facebook, they would have found Anne Frank in less than eight hours.

There’s nothing sentimental or ethical about Rupert Murdoch. I’m sure there are those who think he is trying to make things right. Of course, many thought the same thing about Rudolph Hess. Murdoch’s a naturalized – or perhaps an unnaturalized American citizen. Here’s an idea: revoke his citizenship. Yeah, sure, Bruce. What politician would have the guts to suggest such a thing, to take on Fox News in an election season? Fox News is the greatest invention since Agent Orange. Just for that hideous hoax called Fox News, Murdoch should be sent packing. Packing to where? I don’t know. I don’t care.

When I was a youngster, I used to pester my grandmother about what life was like when she was a girl.

“What,” I’d ask Nana, “did you read in the newspapers when you were a child?”

She’d say, “Are you kidding? Young girls were not allowed to read newspapers!”

But Nana added, “I remember when Teddy Roosevelt sent The Great White Fleet around the world. We were so proud. We were showing the world that America was the most powerful country on the planet.”

Symbols of power remain as strong as ever. Newspapers had such a role in it, as Facebook does now. It’s about time that Murdoch and his power are dismantled. But not to worry. The next media mogul just might produce even more trouble. Let’s try to watch out for that.

Bruce Bellingham also writes for Northside San Francisco and the New York-based Media People. Hack him at [email protected]