Newser-founder and media entrepreneur Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) said that the media industry spends too much time worrying about Rupert Murdoch and that News International is no longer in a position to materially impact the future of the newspaper industry.

Wolff should know. He recently wrote The man who owns the news, a biography of Murdoch.

Speaking at The Guardian’s Changing Media Summit today, Wolff said, “Murdoch has always been the defiler of the newspaper industry yet now he’s its last defender. It’s incredibly painful for him but he might not make it to retirement [in the newspaper business] or whatever he wants to do next”.

“He wants to be the saviour of the industry but no one else in News International thinks like this – no one is challenging him. Up until a year ago he’d only been on the internet accompanied,” he said.

In a closing prediction to his keynote Wolff said that we will have stopped worrying about Murdoch in five years time.