Woe is he. Media baron Rupert Murdoch is said to be depressed over setbacks to his compulsive efforts to acquire ever more media platforms from which to spew his international rightist propaganda. The news of Murdoch’s depression comes from a trusted ally, Andrew Neil, founding chairman of Sky TV and former editor of Murdoch’s Sunday Times in London.

Neil describes Murdoch’s dismay that criminal activity by his newspapers may frustrate his attempt to assume control over the 60% of satellite network BSkyB that he doesn’t already own. It seems that his minions at News of the World were caught hacking into the phones of politicians and celebrities to obtain information for salacious stories. That behavior may have an impact on Britain’s regulators approving the Murdoch acquisition.

According to Neil, Murdoch is now taking radical steps to salvage the deal. Though years have past since the hacking was first discovered and reported, Murdoch is only now attempting to hold anyone accountable. So he fired an assistant editor. That’ll show ’em. And this new demonstration of hardball tactics comes after he previously paid millions in hush money to prevent the scandal from being exposed. So his first instinct was to sweep it under the rug and, now that the deal is teetering, he shifts to punishing low-level scapegoats.

The BSkyB deal has also been criticized by media watchdogs because it would give an unprecedented degree of control over the British media to one man. And that one man has made it clear that he would exercise editorial control over the Sky News division of BSkyB. He told a parliamentary inquiry that “Sky News would be more popular if it were more like the Fox News Channel.”

That’s what British news consumers have to look forward to if Murdoch is successful. For their sake, I hope he is not. And if that only makes him more depressed I suppose he’ll just have to live with it.