• Reuters, Monday, July 11, 2011 9:15 AM

Rupert Murdoch, Inc. is betting that the extreme cure -- dismasting itself of the News of the World -- will save the News Corp. brand from the gangrenous influence of the hacking operations at that tabloid.

But will that be enough to keep the phone-hacking scandal spreading to the wider News Corp. brand, which includes The Times, Sunday Times, The Sun and BSkyB? Some say no. "I think the strategic error that News Corp. made was in thinking that if they shut the paper, that would end it, that the toxicity would end with the paper," said brand strategist Simon Middleton, author of Build a Brand in 30 Days. "But that toxicity has spread."

It doesn't help that Rebekah Brooks, now chief executive of the media hose's operations in the U.K., was an editor under whose watch the phone hacking was rampant.

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