For those looking for a little uplift among the Rupert wreckage, Tina Brown’s Newsweek has given Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger a forum to explain “How We Broke the Murdoch Scandal“:
Every so often—perhaps once every 18 months—the veteran Guardian writer Nick Davies comes into my office, shuts the door with a conspiratorial backward glance, and proceeds to tell me something hair-raising.
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In June last year he wanted to inform me about Julian Assange. He’d read that the (then little-known) snowy-haired hacker was on the run with a data stick full of millions of secret documents that the U.S. Defense and State departments had carelessly hemorrhaged. His plan was to track him down … and then The Guardian would publish them all. Good idea?
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Early in 2009 there had been a similar moment. He’d discovered that James Murdoch, the son and heir of the most powerful private news-media company on earth, had done a secret deal to pay more than $1 million to cover up evidence of criminal behavior within the company. Interested?
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The answer to both questions was—of course. Followed by a small inner gulp at the sheer scale and implications of the stories. Followed by the sight of Nick, invariably dressed in jeans and a defiantly unfashionable brown leather jacket, disappearing back out through the door in search of trouble…
Ripping yarns! It seems somehow appropriate that the number-one story on the adjacent Popular-on-Newsweek sidebar should be “The Science of Triumph”.
Ms. Brown further provides, for her American readers, a precis of the career of “Rupert’s Red Menace” Rebekah Brooks, a cheatsheet of sad salacious detail in the guise of rhetorical righteousness from “a member of the UN’s Internal Justice Council“, and a pious invocation of the priceless value of a free press in our capitalist global economy from the half of the Watergate reporting duo never known to have been on the CIA’s payroll.
I still insist Tina Brown’s defection from the pro-Rupert ranks is as good an indicator of his immanent demise as the steady decline of Murdoch’s company shares on Wall Street. Brown made her media bones as a courtier in the very British nobs-and-snobs strongholds where Brooks could instruct the Prime Minister on his choice of media liaisons over tea after following a fox hunt together. We Americans joke about the deadly social/political instincts of the HuffPo proprietress, but Tina made Ariana look like a grubby little Greek climber forced to decamp for the colonies after coming a distant second to Lady Evans, CBE.
Villago Delenda Est
Ms. Brown recognizes, as all rats do, that the ship is in trouble.
Time to leave.
Violet
News Corps’ shares rebounded dramatically today after the Murdochs’ testimony. The pie-ing probably didn’t hurt. Sympathy for the old guy and all.
Tina Brown is nothing if not an opportunist. An article on “How we broke the story!” will bring eyeballs to the flailing Newsweek. I’m just surprised Rusbridger chose to have it published there.
Linda Featheringill
[“imminent” if something is about to happen]
Great post.
I suspect that a lot of people we wouldn’t normally classify as being on “our side” would like to be rid of Murdoch.
DougJ in Damascus
Great article, thanks for posting this.
jwb
Violet: the price was rebounding before the pie incident. Another theory would be that Murdoch performed so poorly and James not much better that it seems both might be gone. I read speculation that the NI is devalued at least 25% compared to its underlying assets (the cost of Murdoch’s control) so that if Murdoch were to lose control, the value of the NI shares might appreciate fairly substantially.
Brachiator
Oh, my word. Very good.
scav
There’s also shareholder maneuvering, hits of changes to the control RM has on the board etc as well and lawyering up on this side that might explain some of the stock movement, in as much as most single days movements deserve to be interpreted. Gotta be on the Guard, I don’t think I’ve much time to be anywhere else today. NYT also seems to be keeping up with the financial end of things.
dww44
and I loved this.
smurfette
So, tell me, who and where was the deal made that made Tony Snow Bush’s press sect?
JGabriel
Simon Pegg on Twitter (via The Daily Mirror):
.
NonyNony
@JGabriel
Feh. More like Saruman and Wormtongue in front of the Council of Elrond.
Kathleen
I apologize for trashing the New York Times after reading “How We Broke the Murdoch Scandal“. Of course, the Times doesn’t even know I exist or could care less to begin with but I think it’s only fair to give props when deserved. I didn’t realize the big part the Times played.
Joel
Apologies to Tom, but this is what they call “truth in advertising”.
ornery
Leave fox hunting out of this please!
robertdsc-PowerBook
Ouch. LOL.