Approximately an hour into the highly anticipated inquiry by members of Parliament of News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch, a comedian named Jonnie Marbles served up a shaving cream pie onto Rupert’s face. Marbles was quickly batted away with his own pie plate by Mrs. Wendi Murdoch (in the pink suit) and taken by police. The incident paused the proceedings for several minutes while the Murdochs and MPs regained their footing.
It’s a shame that this moment of today’s testimony — an historic occasion where government is scrutinizing the news media and itself for their sometimes too-cozy relationship — is marred by one individual”s high jinks. But then again, politics is about theater. The two Murdochs comported themselves with the appropriate humility necessary to give a viewing audience (their primary jury) room for reasonable doubt. That Mrs. Murdoch performed ju-jitsu on the assailant with a pie plate added a measure of sympathy for the elder Murdoch.
As a finishing touch to today’s proceedings, the Dow Jones Industrial average, a subsidiary of News Corp, announced today that the market ended on an up note. With the other big news item of the day — that the CEO of a major corporation expressed supreme regret, displaying humility before Britain’s MPs, sent a subtle message to the market and American audiences that the Murdochs were bravely taking it on the chin for American business. All soon to be well.
Being used to news media as massage, not message, and the history of Fox News in America, today’s proceedings were well produced. And the pie as good a pie as any. But the pie isn’t cream. It’s cow. So we need to continue watching through the enormous precedent of a corporate veil, finally pierced, that Eric pointed out in last Friday’s weekly. The company is in desperate times, and these are desperate moves.
yes, like I said; that’s no wife, that’s a bodyguard. Thought that in the first pic I ever saw of her prior to the pie-in-face-thwart.
Ha. I’d like to see That pre-nup.
yes, wendi goes flying gallantly. wish they’d kept the cameras rolling from the other angle. where is that footage?
i like that the guardian replays it in slow-mo:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/video/2011/jul/19/rupert-murdoch-jamesmurdoch