.jpg) |
Take a spiraling-out-of-control media scandal and add a mogul who is nationally reviled. Carefully place both in a parliamentary hearing. After simmering for some minutes over medium heat, add two further ingredients: A publicity-seeking cretin and a kung-fu superwife who is determined to defend her man.
Shake, stir, pour. What do you get? A surprising new turn in the U.K.’s phone-hacking saga.
Things went un-according to plan when a self-appointed mouthpiece of public indignation and self-described comedian, Jonathon May-Marbles, infiltrated a parliamentary hearing to launch a custard pie at News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch.
(To those readers who took issue with a recent column bemoaning the appalling state of the U.K.’s public services, I ask you this: This man was not a crack al-Qaida operative ― thank God ― but how could a fool armed with a custard pie manage to infiltrate and disrupt the nation’s highest-profile hearing, in the Houses of Parliament? Dare I suggest incompetence on the part of the relevant authorities? But I digress).
May-Marbles is a member of a ridiculous new species, one bred by developments in online media and digital camcorders. While social media such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter are in many ways positive phenomena, the rise of self-appointed, self-publicizing, self-righteous, anarchic activists are one of the negatives.
These fools are perhaps the great bane of the YouTube era; they are to serious activism what Justin Bieber is to rock ‘n roll. Yet the numbers of these pests seem to be increasing.
In this case, however, the irritating insect was quashed before it got a chance to sting. Barely had May-Marbles launched his missile when he was slapped into next week by the flying figure of Ms. Wendi Deng, the spouse of Mr. Murdoch. Chinese-born and a former professional volleyball player, the Tiger Wife unleashed a blistering airborne overhand right that would have been the envy of a UFC champion.
The result? May-Marbles’ 15 minutes of infamy resulted in she, not he, becoming the sensation. I wonder how the activist ― whose intent was to make Murdoch look ridiculous ― feels after the surprise intervention by his target’s missus?
Talk about a stunt that backfired.
Had a corporate PR team been asked to brainstorm a perception-changing publicity stunt that would surge across the Web like viral wildfire, they would have been hard pressed to have come up with a better result than this. Wendi’s spirited counterattack and elevation to Internet icon has done more to burnish Murdoch’s much-tarnished public image than anything or anyone in this whole sorry saga.
(As an aside: One cannot help but wonder how the frail-looking Murdoch, 80, maintains Ms. Deng, 42, in a state of conjugal bliss: A daily ingestion of ginseng, Viagra and weapons-grade uranium, perhaps? But ― again ― I digress).
Speaking more broadly: Am I alone in finding the spectacle of an entire nation baying for Murdoch’s blood an unedifying one?
Granted, the Australian-born media mogul wields tremendous, perhaps undue, political influence across the Anglosphere. But who else has the chutzpah and the funds to own and operate a newspaper empire in the current, loss-making era, an era which may well see the end of newspapers as we know them? If he cashes out of his British papers, I don’t see anyone riding in to take them over.
Equally seriously, the Australian mogul was one of the key players behind the spiral of crass populism that British media has tumbled into over the last 30 years. On that charge, however, Murdoch should not be standing alone in the dock: Alongside him should be the U.K.’s massed ranks of tabloid editors.
Were this unsavory crew to be found guilty of one of the great media crimes of all time ― the erosion of a nation’s IQ by feeding its readers a brain-rotting diet of scandal, gossip and puerile celebrity codswallop ― and strung up from Traitors’ Gate, I would be the first to applaud. Hell! I’d volunteer to tighten the nooses.
Of course, in the (sadly unlikely) event of ``Phone Hackgate” resulting in Britain’s tabloids falling like dominoes and closing one after the other, a new problem would arise: What would Britons read on their morning commutes? Most likely, a new media ― The Daily Drivel, perhaps ― would rise from the ashes of News of the World, The Sun, The Mirror and the rest.
Here is my suggestion: Every adult Briton should be forced, by law, to read The Economist for a year. As a measure to restore the national intelligence, I think this is the only bulletproof solution.
Of course, were it to benefit from such a sudden mass infusion of readers, it would be entirely reasonable for that publication to make one or two minor adjustments to its layout to accommodate the habits of its oafish new readership.
Let me be the first to suggest a revealing photo of Wendi Deng on Page 3.
Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based reporter and author. His latest book “Scorched Earth, Black Snow: Britain and Australia in the Korean War, 1950” was published in June. He can be reached at andrewcsalmon@yahoo.co.uk.
