Almost two years after winning his $5bn bid for the Wall Street Journal, one of the US's most high-minded and sober of journalistic institutions, Rupert Murdoch finds himself having to deal with allegations about the anything-goes culture of British tabloid newspapers.

The 2007 takeover of Dow Jones seemed designed to change the image of Mr Murdoch's newspaper empire. The Journal, its flagship title, became the new star of a business including more salacious papers such as the New York Post and The Sun.