Why did the cash-strapped New York Times send three reporters to Britain to cover the News of the World phone-hacking story?

That question has cropped up ever since the paper ran its lengthy magazine feature on 1 September because the story was of no particular interest to 99% of its readers.

It was obviously a response by the NY Times to the incursion on its territory by the Wall Street Journal ever since it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch.

But as soon as that is said, aside from the possible embarrassment factor, in what way could such a feature make any practical difference to Murdoch?

The answer to that should be seen in the context of the increasingly antagonistic anti-Murdoch sentiments expressed across the media in the United States.

Much of it is directed, unsurprisingly, at Fox News. Jon Stewart's Daily Show lives off it. The more serious news outlet, Politico, is on Fox's tail too (see here).

Murdoch's donations to the Republican party have also attracted critical headlines in several US papers apart from the NY Times (see here) plus a host of websites.

The sheer quantity of negative copy about Murdoch and his company, News Corporation, is assuming feeding frenzy proportions. But it is the repetition of the British phone-hacking saga that is taking centre stage.

The latest example can be found in the Columbia Journalism Review, Murdoch's threat to democracy.

The CJR article, by Ryan Chittum, starts off with the GOP donations, takes a side-swipe at Murdoch's UK media influence and concludes with phone-hacking.

It has now become clear that the New York Times has set the agenda with its revelations. The story has "legs".

The Dispatches revelations

Doubtless, the US papers will also pick up on the revelations in last night's Channel 4 Dispatches, presented by Peter Oborne, in which an anonymous former NoW staffer claimed that Andy Coulson knew all about voicemail interceptions by his reporters.

Coulson, then the editor and now David Cameron's communications chief, issued a statement to the programme saying he had nothing to add to his previous denials.

The programme branched out from the details of the hacking allegations into broader matters, such as unhealthy links between Murdoch's organisation and the Conservatives, and unethical links between the News of the World and Scotland Yard.

The evidence for these links was, by its nature, circumstantial. But I was taken with the statements made by the former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick. Why was he of all people never told by his police colleagues that his mobile phone calls may have been compromised?

I also noted that the programme's allegations were covered at some length on the Daily Mail website yesterday evening under the headline Andy Coulson 'listened to illegal hacked phone messages' when editing News of the World.

This was significant. The Mail, unlike several other papers, has featured several stories on the Coulson affair (though, sadly, not in printed form). But it does appear that the government's spin doctor is becoming the story.