Tabloidgate secondo il blogger economista di The New Yorker, John Cassidy.
Two weeks in, and the great phone-hacking scandal is beginning to resemble a remake of “The Alamo,” with Rupert Murdoch reprising John Wayne’s role as Davy Crockett and his son James standing in for Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie. The Murdochs’ enemies are still besieging the fort, their own side’s casualties are mounting, and their ammunition is running low. They are in desperate need of relief. But where will the U.S. Cavalry come from, and will it arrive in time?
Every day seems to bring a fresh disaster. On Sunday, close to midnight London time, the police finally released Rebekah Brooks, until Friday the chief executive of News International, who had been held in custody for almost twelve hours. “She was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and on suspicion of corruption allegations contrary to Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906,” the police said in a statement.So much for the suggestion that Brooks, who edited the News of the World from 2000 until 2003, knew nothing of the phone hacking that took place under her editorship. To be sure, she is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. But as far as the police are concerned, she is now a suspect in not one but two big criminal investigations—one into phone hacking and a second into allegations that News International journalists paid policemen for non-public information on the royals and other celebrities.
What a difference a week makes. On interrupting his vacation and flying into London last Sunday, Murdoch adopted a typically defiant stance, going out to dinner and posing for photographs with the two executives at the center of the mess: Brooks and his son James. His top priority, Murdoch told reporters, was saving Brooks. For once, he had badly misjudged things. After both major parties turned against him and the police arrested Andy Coulson, a former editor of the News of the World who had gone on to become David Cameron’s press secretary, the ageless octogenarian was forced into carrying out what is known on Fleet Street as a “reverse ferret”*.
On Friday, he met with the parents of Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl whose cell-phone voicemails were hacked by some of his employees; he personally apologized for the actions of journalists and investigators employed by the News of the World; and he finally accepted the resignations of Brooks and her predecessor, Les Hinton, who had moved on to become the chief executive of Dow Jones. “Day of Atonement,” said the front-page headline in Saturday’s Times of London. (Proprietor: R. Murdoch)
If Murdoch was hoping these moves would get him out ahead of the scandal, he has already been disappointed. In addition to the arrest of Brooks, Sunday brought the resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who had an unusually cozy relationship with senior News International executives, particularly Neil Wallis, a former deputy editor of the News of the World. After leaving the Murdoch newspaper several years ago, Wallis went to work for Scotland Yard as a media consultant. Now that Wallis has also been arrested in the phone-hacking scandal, Sir Paul understandably took the view that his position was untenable.
And that is yet more bad news for the Murdochs. Under new leadership and in the face of unprecedented public scrutiny, the London police have every incentive to assert their independence from News Corp. The way things are going, it seems certain that in the coming days they will haul in for more people connected to the News of the World. People in London are busy speculating whether James Murdoch will be among them. It seems inconceivable that the police won’t want to question him as a witness, at the least.
And the net may widen beyond the News of the World. Reports are emerging that one of the shady private detectives at the center of the scandal may have met with journalists at other Murdoch titles, including the upscale Sunday Times. Nothing has been confirmed. But in this climate, every rumor, no matter how unlikely, is being taken seriously.
In short, the scandal has developed a momentum of its own. On Tuesday, Murdoch Sr. and Murdoch Jr. are due to appear before a parliamentary committee that is investigating the scandal. A much bigger judicial inquiry is about to get off the ground. Who knows where that will lead?
For now, the best the Murdochs can hope for is to get through a few days without any more damaging revelations. Even that might not be enough to save them. In London media circles, there is gleeful talk of dissension within the Murdoch family. According to a report in the Guardian, which is having the time of its hundred-and-ninety-year life, Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert’s second-oldest daughter, who also works for News Corp., was heard to remark last week at a book party: “James and Rebekah fucked the company.”
As of now, that sounds about right.
*The etymology of this phrase is interesting: it goes back to the nineteen-eighties, when Kelvin MacKenzie, a legendary tabloid figure, edited the Sun, the daily stablemate of the News of the World. On those evenings when he was about to publish a particularly incendiary front page—a top-tier celebrity caught in a sex and drugs binge, say—a delighted McKenzie would sometimes cackle to his staff, “Ferret down the trousers, ferret down the trousers.” The next day, if something went wrong and the story had to be retracted, or heavily modified, a stricken McKenzie would announce, “Reverse ferret, reverse ferret.”
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