the guardian. how much is the press being spun by the president and the republicans. i m howard kurtz. this is reliable sources. the murdoch media empire is in all-out damage control mode as the scandal at the british papers continues to spread on this side of the atlantic, the fbi opened a preliminary investigation on whether phone hacking took place in the u.s. and the dizzies pace of developments has made headlines around the world. mps finally forced murdoch to withdraw his bskyb bid. his empire has cracked, but is it broken. following breaking news in london where the embattled chief executive of murdoch s newspaper has resigned. news international will issue a statement to say that rebekah brooks has resigned as the chief executive of news international. more damaging details are emerging in the phone hacking scandal. other news corp properties are being implicated in the growing scandal. rebekah brooks resigned leaving the fight for news international s