Phone hacking is the symptom of a situation where one media company has far too much power. So much power that politicians from both sides became too scared to stop the abuse.
Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who has pursued this story relentlessly for over two years, makes this point emphatically in this video. He's not alone, PM David Cameron made the same point in an extraordionary media conference last week. Hear more about it on this fabulous video update from Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor-in-chief. Here is just one more example about the problem of media concentration in the UK:
Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer and close ally of Vince Cable, who was stripped of the responsibility for the BSkyB merger after a Telegraph sting recorded him saying he had "declared war" with Murdoch over the merger plans, said: "Liberal Democrats from the cabinet to councillors … are totally united. We want to block the BSkyB bid and then break up the Murdoch empire. He's far too powerful, we don't let Tesco have 40% of the market. This is not just about blocking the bid it's about ending a serious danger to our democracy."
I suppose this analogy doesn't work so well in a country that tolerates the Coles - Woolworths duopoly.
And then there is the Murdoch monopoly lock on British football. How many NRL clubs are owned by News Ltd, and what did happen to that enquiry into rorting at Melbourne Storm?
Arguably, News Limited has even more power in Australia than it does in the UK. It has a newspaper monopoly in several major metropolitan markets (Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth), and it has a monopoly on pay TV. It has the only national broadsheet, and the two biggest selling newspapers in Melbourne and Sydney.
Of course, nothing like the phone hacking scandal has even been hinted at in Australia.
But if the issue is media concentration, and the political power it delivers, perhaps it is time to have another look at media ownership in this country.
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