“I’ll suspend my incredulity again,” said the MP questioning the Murdochs, father and son, before the British Parliament this week.
Now there’s a great mantra for those of us on the couch.
This is what we need to say during any reality-TV show, when the players make heartfelt confessions to the camera, or act appalled or self-righteous about bad behavior, or express chagrin about voting former buddies off the island:
“I’ll suspend my incredulity again.”
The mantra is particularly apt for this summer’s ongoing soap opera, the reality show of the News Corp. meltdown.
This week, the top News Corp. executives testified about the illegal means of information-gathering used by people in their employ.
How hands-on were these execs of News Corp.? Not at all, they claimed.
Did they foster a corporate culture in which the British tabloids were pushed to produce screaming headlines, a culture in which intimidation and bribery were tools of the trade?
They knew nothing. Think “Hogan’s Heroes” and Col. Klink.
Remember the mantra.
In the case of Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, testifying at the Committee for Culture, Media and Sport, it is alleged that tabloid information-gathering sometimes involved phone hacking, breaking into the private messages of celebrities, politicians, victims and, in one case, a dead adolescent.
One thing we learned from the media spectacle: In polite society, phone hacking is called “voicemail interception.”
The seeming implosion of the Murdoch empire has captured imaginations on both sides of the Atlantic, not always for high-minded journalistic reasons.
Beyond hating Murdoch, the powerful boss (think “The Simpsons” and Mr. Burns), there’s his Foxification of the pop culture generally and the overtly political nature of his empire.
Also: People love to hate the media. Rupert gives them a free pass to hate the media proudly, loudly and globally.
Murdoch’s testimony touched on such high-minded ideals as “a free press,” “an open society” and “democracy” in the course of expertly crafted “unreserved apologies” — what was reserved was any hint of personal accountability.
“This is the most humble day of my life,” Rupert said in a declaration that is, at least, grammatically askew. How humble? Would he accept that he is ultimately responsible for this whole fiasco?
“Nope,” he said.
Humble isn’t his thing.
Rupert hasn’t considered resigning. He doesn’t think he’s ultimately responsible. “It’s for them to pay,” he sniffed.
James just aspires to “put things right.”
In the Enron affair, an MP noted, “willful blindness” was the term invoked. Here, “passing the buck” might be more apropos. At News Corp., the buck stops 10 or 12 floors below the corporate suite.
Watergate parallels were abundant, too. Keith Olbermann debriefed John Dean after some of the testimony. Dean found “no humility at all” in the Murdochs’ performance. (Olbermann, on Current TV, stayed with the subject long after other cable networks switched to coverage of the debt debate. But the Murdoch meltdown is tailor-made for Olbermann, and Current cashed in.)
Ultimately, the Parliamentary committee didn’t lay a hand on Murdoch. In fact, the pie prankster got closer but was batted down by Murdoch’s best protector, his wife, with brilliant reflexes and a volleyball spike.
Thankfully, that eye-popping video clip didn’t dominate the news coverage.
It’s rumored in media circles that News Corp. may spin off its Fox properties in the U.S., including the station group, to avoid any further embarrassment or legal action at the level of local TV stations.
Remaining questions: How did a shaving-cream pie make it past Parliamentary security in the first place? What to make of the whistleblower found dead?
And who should play whom in the inevitable movie? So far, I’m seeing Julianne Moore for Rebekah Brooks and Ralph Fiennes back in Voldemort makeup as Rupert.
Plus a “Glee Project” sort of reality-show competition for the role of the pie pitcher.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
