Blotchy Gong Show revivalist and CNN host Piers Morgan came off looking good in his confrontation with a British MP who accused him—falsely, as it turns out—on Tuesday of having confessed in his memoir to phone hacking while he was editor of the Daily Mirror. So we decided to catalog all the other—far more credible—indications that hacking went on under his nose during his tabloid days and...not so good! Let's have a look.
Al Sharpton will almost certainly be the host for MSNBC's recently opened-up 6 p.m. time slot, reports The New York Times, which describes the hiring as "imminent." He's actually been "guest-hosting" in that slot for the last three weeks, if you are among the apparent millions who tune in; previously, the spot was occupied by Cenk Uygur, who left claiming he'd been told by MSNBC president Phil Griffin that "people in Washington... did not like [his] tone." (Griffin says he told Uygur to adjust his body language.) Our choice for the 6 p.m. slot would have been a constant replay of Mark Halperin saying the word "dick," but we're not in charge. [NYT, photo via AP]
Puffy British game-show presenter Piers Morgan, who also hosts a show on CNN about Twitter, is in the spotlight these days because he formerly edited Rupert Murdoch's News of the World and a competitor called the Daily Mirror, and as such is prima facie guilty of hacking into everyone's voicemails all the time.
In your sultry Wednesday media column: HuffPo's scapegoat gets her job back, WSJ reporters mildly defend themselves, Tablet magazine redesigns, a military reporter reflects on death, and Jim Romenesko is the new Yelp.
Jack O'Dwyer is an old reporter who has been covering the PR industry in his own personal publication for about a million years now. He's generally seen as a cranky but tolerable fixture of the PR journalism scene.
Man, was that a gas or what? Two-plus hours of doddering and selective senility, with a surprise splosh party and French manicure attack thrown in for good measure! One day, we'll have a better understanding of what the Murdochian Inquisition meant in the grand scheme of things; but for now, let's just take a moment to savor the bounty of fresh memes it's produced. These memes to us be blessed, amen.
What the fuck does Rupert Murdoch do all day? To judge by his baffling performance before a British parliamentary committee investigating him for phone hacking, little more than gossip on the phone with whatever old-timer is willing to indulge him while his son James and wife Wendi battle for control of News Corporation.
In your Murdoch-free Tuesday media roundup: speculation on the LAT's future, Time magazine gets more paywall-y, everyone wants to work for CJR, Jay Rosen pontificates, and a labor journalism spat.
Someone just accosted Rupert Murdoch during his testimony before Parliament, apparently in an attempt to throw a pie in his face. He doesn't appear to have been injured. His wife Wendi played bodyguard, catapulting herself toward the attacker with arms and nails flailing. His son James just stood there.
Rupert Murdoch and his son James have been testifying this morning before a British Parliamentary committee investigating the wide-ranging criminality of basically everything they've done for the past 20 years.
In the olden days before the U.S. economy devolved into a pure gold-and-canned-goods bartering system, Wall Street guys were the ones who rented all the gaudy, overpriced good apartments. Now that Wall Street's been decimated, who will the real estate industry turn to, to unload all those new condos with "Wii rooms?" Oh, they will sell these pricey spaces to "bloggers," it says here. Hahaha.
Ukrainian feminist activist group FEMEN turned up at the Georgian consulate in Kiev yesterday, topless, bearing fake cameras and wearing panties emblazoned with the word "PRESS." This was all in the name of protesting the arrest of two photojournalists on spying charges, you see, which is why all those photographers turned out, I imagine. Alas, an embassy thug comes out and starts smacking everyone around—topless faux-photographer and shirted real photographer alike!
How bad are things looking for News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal? This bad: If he screws up enough during Tuesday's parliamentary hearing, he may be replaced as CEO by jauntily-mustachioed COO Chase Carey.
The hacking group LulzSec appears to be back, with a very timely hack of Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid The Sun—the sister publication of the dead News of the World. And they warn, ominously, that they've got emails, too.
Hey did you know that county-level Medicaid administrators in Ohio aren't vigorously vetting the applicants who seek their services? Thank God for James O'Keefe, the only journalist in the nation with the sheer guts to tell this bone-chilling tale of county bureaucrats failing to diligently do their jobs.
In your sunny Monday media column: Reader's Digest is for sale (and maybe Wenner Media too?), a theory of typos, a horrific penalty for insulting Fox News, and your Immediately Discarded Rupert Murdoch Theory of the Day.
Even in the deepest, most gloomy depths of the worst scandal of a lifetime, Rupert Murdoch cannot contain his fundamental not-giving-a-fuck-about-public-opinion nature. It permeates every level of News Corp, the company he made in his image. But it is possible—believe it or not!—for public opinion to overwhelm even the staunchest self-justification.
In your finally Friday media column: Rupert Murdoch apologizes, Andrew Ross Sorkin gets a TV gig, the AP stylebook is wrong, Google encourages you to read, and Bob Schieffer is still among the living.
