News Ltd owns 70 per cent of the circulation of major newspapers in Australia. If Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, were an apolitical or a distant figure, this might not matter, but he has a powerful set of ideological beliefs and is determined to maintain tight control over the political line of all his papers on issues that interest him.

Politically engaged citizens have a plethora of accessible sources of information on the internet, but News Ltd's capacity to influence the opinions of the vast majority of less engaged citizens - whose political understanding is shaped directly by the popular newspapers and indirectly through the commercial radio and television programs that rely on newspapers for content and, more deeply, for the way they interpret the world - is unjustifiable.

'This power to distort political debate must be challenged and broken.' Credit:Reuters

The company's domination of our newspaper market poses a real and present danger to the health of Australian democracy.

Take, for example, the reported discussion by News Ltd editors and key journalists earlier this year about the need to do something about the minority Gillard government and its alliance with the Greens. Following that meeting, Murdoch tabloids began to campaign in earnest against the government and in particular against its carbon tax.