COMMENTATORS looking forward to the British general election confidently agree about the probable nature of the campaign (dirty) and the likely winners (Labour).
They're not so sure about something nearer home: the part to be played by the media generally, the press in particular and especially the papers owned and controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
After Mr John Major's surprise victory in the 1992 election, Mr Murdoch's Sun had no doubt about its role.
Not only where it stood but with what effect: "It was the Sun wot won it".
As if to lend weight to this claim, Tony Blair travelled halfway round the world last year for the privilege of a private, but highly publicised, session with Mr Murdoch himself.
The Australian, it seems, doesn't share his editors' anxiety to play down his influence - at least while they work for him - on the policies of the papers he owns.
As Mr Vincent Hanna observed with a chuckle, on Radio 4, the tune changes when the editors leave or are fired and Mr Murdoch becomes, in their memoirs, the last word in interfering proprietors. A Charlie Kane of the 1990s.
Kane you may remember as Citizen Kane in Orson Welles's thinly disguised portrait of William Randolph Hearst.
And Mr Hearst wasn't the first proprietor to suffer from delusions of political grandeur, any more than Mr Murdoch will be the last to make no bones about his determination to influence the fate of governments.
LORD Beaverbrook, who owned the Daily Express, spoke frankly of the power that he and his rivals, the brothers Rothermere and Northcliffe, had at their command 75 years ago.
"When skilfully employed at the psychological moment," he said, "no politician can resist it. It is a flaming sword which will cut through any political armour ... [Newspapers] are in themselves unloaded guns. But teach the man behind them how to load and what to shoot at, and they become deadly."
Rothermere agreed: "The journalist qua journalist must always express more or less the views of the proprietor. Northcliffe, myself and yourself [Beaverbrook] express our own view untrammelled by anyone."
Stanley Baldwin in a speech written, it seems, by his cousin, Rudyard Kipling - memorably dismissed them: "What the proprietorships of these papers is aiming at is power, but power without responsibility - the prerogative of the ballot throughout the ages."
Mr Baldwin survived the skirmish, but the power of those who own and control the media still challenges politicians - and politics - not only in Britain or the US, but in this State.
We sometimes forget that, though Mr Murdoch is viewed with fear and loathing in Britain, and his television empire has begun to spread to China, his papers still command a smaller share of the UK market than Tony O'Reilly's Independent Group achieves in this State.
Dr O'Reilly's dominance is breathtaking. Some two thirds of the 546,000 national morning and evening newspapers sold daily in the Republic are produced by Independent Newspapers. This includes the Star, a joint venture with Express Newspapers.
And, including the heavily dependent Sunday Tribune, the group publishes over 95 per cent of the 755,000 Irish papers sold on Sundays.
IT also owns 10 regional weekly papers, of which the Kerryman is best known The others cover the counties from the Border to Wexford, with average weekly sales of about 10,000 a piece.
Independent Newspapers is as profitable as Dunnes Stores, but when it comes to the exercise of power, despite Ben Dunne's contributions to party funds or particular candidates, there is no comparison between the companies. O'Reilly wins, hands down, every time.
How such power is used is bound to have a huge impact, not only on the result of the next election, but on every area of public life, from the conduct of politics to the standards of journalism.
Indeed, a lively debate - might have been expected here, if only because of the unease of late about the influence of business on politics and the current discussion about the impact of the Murdoch papers on the British election.
But there is no debate, though it's easy to imagine the outrage that would have followed a proposal to award even half of the power now vested in Dr O'Reilly and his heirs to someone chosen by and accountable to the electorate.
There would have been outrage because the O'Reilly papers would have spotted a challenge to their master's views about the nature of capital and the need to get governments off the back of business. And they'd have torn to shreds everyone who had anything to do with the idea.
There is no debate because most politicians, and most others in public life, recognise the risks attached to any hint of criticism of Independent Newspapers, or anyone the group chooses to support.
Even to be seen to deviate from certain lines, especially on taxation and crime, is to invite the wrath, not just of one writer or of one paper, but of several writers attacking from vantage points all over the group.
The governor of Mountjoy, John Lonergan, dared to offer a mild rebuke to the Irish Independent for its reporting of events in the prison early this week. To say that he was immediately set upon would be feeble understatement.
In one day he was the subject of leading articles in the Irish Independent and the Evening Herald, two comment pieces in the morning paper and a cartoon in the evening - all slyly suggesting that, perhaps because of the pressure he was under, he'd chosen the wrong target.
The lead story in the Herald left no doubt about the group's common reaction to criticism and its choice of target in this case: "You were warned, Governor," roared the headline, over a report quoting a letter written by prison officers in March.
As if Mr Lonergan (and everyone else) hadn't had many such warnings; as if the governor had the power and resources to make radical changes in the meantime.
But when the O'Reilly papers decide to take someone on, not even prudent self interest calls a halt. Or so it seemed during and after the libel case taken by Proinsias De Rossa against the Sunday Independent.
The group's determination to be rid of the centre left Coalition at all costs has been obvious for more than a year. And more obvious in the Sunday Independent and the Star than elsewhere.
But its pursuit of Mr De Rossa while the case was in progress seemed inexplicable to anyone with experience of court reporting. And the reaction when, for the time being at least, the result went against the paper was a woeful display of tantrums and whingeing.
A great deal has been done to encourage change in public life generally and more openness on issues of concern to journalists in particular.
There are those, like Marie McGonagle, Kevin Boyle and the members of Let in the Light, who work patiently for the reform of our libel laws.
There are others - and I believe John Lonergan is one of them - who share a view once expressed by Veronica Guerin about the need to change the conditions that help make criminals of people.
Neither project is helped by the notion that newspapers are comparable to unloaded guns or a response to criticism that says: Touch me not.