An article in the Sydney Morning Herald today reports that the closure of News Corp’s News of the World tabloid will negatively impact chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch’s various business ventures.

News of the World is closing following revelations that its reporters illegally hacked into phones of celebrities, children, and disaster victims. The Scandal has prompted an investigation in the United Kingdom where News Corp is currently trying to take over the global satellite TV provider, BSkyB. The takeover will have to be approved by British regulators.

The article also said News Corp’s bid to run Australia’s state-run TV station is also much less likely to succeed following the scandal.

Murdoch also controls several news outlets in the United States, including Fox News Channel and the Wall Street Journal. Here’s a look at how Murdoch, his company, and its affiliates influence politics here in the U.S.

• Murdoch personally contributed $34,900 to various candidates and PACs in 2009-10, including $10,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee He also gave $2,400 to Carly Fiorina, the republican candidate for Senate in California in 2010.
• All of Murdoch’s personal political contributions were to Republican-affiliated PACs and candidates, except for $5,000 he contributed to a PAC called News America Holdings, also known as “Fox Political Action Committee”, which is run by News Corp. The PAC made $317,840 in campaign contributions in 2009-10, 55 percent of which went to Democrats.
• Contributions from employees of News Corp, which runs Fox News, the New York Post, and other media outlets, made $594,498 in campaign contributions in 2009-10, 59 percent of which went to Democrats.
• News Corp spent $1,380,000 on lobbying in 2009-10 and lobbied on bills including the Free Flow of Information Act 2009, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
• Employees of Murdoch-owned Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, made only $4,050 in campaign contributions in 2009-10, 80 percent of which went to Democrats.

‘Influence Explored’ takes an article from the day’s headlines and exposes the influential ways of entities mentioned in the article. Names and corporations are run through Sunlight’s influence tracking tools such as Influence Explorer and Transparency Data to remind readers of the money that powers Washington.