Murdochs in the Hot Seat: Faces of a Scandal

July 19, 2011 — -- intro: The widening scandal at Rupert Murdoch's empire has rocked the media, police and the public in Britain, where Murdoch owns many of the country's largest newspapers. It is alleged that his now defunct News of the World hacked the phones of 4,000 people, from stars to crime victims, to get juicy stories -- all with the encouragement of top editors at the paper and aided by some in the police force.

Rupert Murdoch made a rare apology in British newspapers over the weekend.

The elder Murdoch is a man "who meets power with power" and is not going to leave News Corp. willingly, biographer Michael Wolff told Bloomberg News. Wolff's book, "The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch," was published in 2008.

The Murdoch name has been synonymous with News Corp. even before it was incorporated in 1979. Rupert Murdoch, the only son of Sir Keith Murdoch, took over his father's newspaper publishing business, News Limited, after he passed away in 1952.

After decades of cutthroat competition and shifting technology, the Murdoch family and embattled News Corp., which owns FOX News Channel, The Wall Street Journal, and publisher Harper Collins, among other assets, now face the tough challenge of surviving a scandal that has even rocked Scotland Yard.

After the dust clears, Rupert Murdoch reportedly hopes one of his children will eventually take the reigns of what has been called the second-largest media congolmerate in the world in terms of 2010 revenue behind Disney, which owns ABC News.

Luchina Fisher, Tom Nagorski and Ben Forer contributed to this story.