Alex Johnson – Journalist at Large

(Cross-posted from msnbc.com, where it originally appeared. To read it in context, with all information boxes and art, click here. This is a complete writethrough that significantly updates an earlier version and corrects the spelling of Milly Dowler’s first name.)

Rupert Murdoch, for decades one of the most powerful and feared media figures in the English-speaking world, appeared to many who watched his grilling Tuesday to be a confused old man. And from his standpoint, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, professional crisis managers said.

During 40 years running News Corp., the dominant media company in Great Britain and owner of some of the most prominent media properties in the United States, the 80-year-old Murdoch has built a legend as a man able to decide elections, change the political agenda and severely punish anyone who gets in his way.

But appearing before a committee of the British Parliament on Tuesday, Murdoch claimed to have been out of the loop while reporters for his News of the World tabloid broke into the cell phone voicemail accounts of thousands of people to get scoops, and while his company paid off British police.

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