The past few days have been a stark reminder of the sheer power of Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd machine. When they unleash, the damage is huge.

Hi Stephen, it’s Glenn Milne here. I’m ringing to apologise for my behaviour last night. It was completely out of line. I have put out a public statement apologising to you as well and referring to the fact I had taken some migraine medication and that obviously didn’t go down too well with alcohol. I hope you are unbruised and unhurt and once again, my apologies.  

However, there has been no apology from News Ltd and The Daily Telegraph’s Sydney Confidential column on Saturday complained that I was “whinging” about the attack.

The Herald Sun story on Saturday then managed to maintain its ban on mentioning Crikey but devoted one third of the copy to utterly irrelevant disputes at People Power.

Herald Sun columnists Andrew Bolt and Neil Mitchell were also wheeled out to stick the boots in on A Current Affair on Friday night.

The worst effort of the lot was Milne’s column in all the News Ltd Sunday papers which was littered with errors, such as the name of our website, and gross defamations that will be addressed in a full right of reply next Sunday.

He then had the gall to ring at 6pm last night to personally convey his apology. Yeah, right!

Given all this, I’m not even confident News Ltd will agree to pay the physio bill for the ankle strain.

As it turns out, we now discover that Milne also let fly at his former Channel Seven boss last Thursday night. Clearly, a course in anger management is called for, but News Ltd probably won’t even insist on that.

And this is the mob that is meant to lead by example in holding public figures to account.