DOJ Decides To Not Prosecute News Corp.

The year started well and has only improved for Rupert Murdoch, the media magnate atop the twin corporate holdings of News Corp and 21st Century Fox, according to NPR Media correspondent David Folkenflik.

Folkenflik reports Murdoch's caustic commentary on Twitter helped make the case that former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney should depart the hustings. Through his tabloids, he has argued for a new agenda for the struggling conservative governments his publications had championed in Australia and the U.K. In all three instances, the octogenarian corporate chief demonstrated his relevance and asperity.

Now, Murdoch can breath a large sigh of relief at the dissipation of a major legal threat hanging over his corporate empire. In a filing with federal securities regulators, his companies have disclosed that the U.S. Justice Department has decided not to prosecute them for possible violations of U.S. federal law.

The federal investigation stemmed from the phone hacking scandal that consumed his British tabloids.

The British scandal erupted in July 2011 after disclosures that his tabloids hacked into the cellphone voice mail messages of celebrities, politicians, crime victims and war dead. Under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, however, the bribes his journalists were said to have paid to public officials for confidential information could have triggered federal prosecution.

In the wake of the outcry, Murdoch changed the leadership of all his holdings in the U.K., closed down his top-selling Sunday tabloid News of the World, handed over evidence to British authorities implicating lesser employees in wrongdoing, and split his global holdings in two.

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