"i'm shocked..."

the murdochs ditching their british news of the world paper reminds me of a scene in the 1991 film, class action.

the head of a powerful law firm dismisses the blatantly illegal actions by an associate as having ANY connection to his prestigious firm by telling the judge "michael grazer is no longer part of quinn calafan" ~ ~ forget that less than 10 minutes earlier, the very same michael grazer was very much a partner in good standing. as gene hackman's character sneers ~ "ballast off a sinking ship."

hundreds of innocent people will suffer due to the abrupt folding of news of the world, all sacrificed for what's depicted as the shocking lack of ethics of renegade reporters acting totally on their own, utterly outside the news organization's knowledge.

ah, but news corp, its parent company, is going above & beyond the decisive action of closing down the paper, which will do incredible damage to the many due to the actions of a reported few. as penance for those few bad apples, all this weekend's final profits will be contributed to charity, an altruistic action meant to show how deeply repulsed the murdochs are by relatively low-level employees' lack of ethics.

yeah - and fox news is "fair & balanced."

face it - the abrupt closure by murdochs pere et fils hopes to halt any further inquiry into whether the hacking of the phones of regular people like you & me, in many cases families waiting to hear if children were alive or dead, was limited to a few news of the world reporters or systemic to the news organization, along with questions raised about who knew what when.

whatever it takes - including a ceremonial wearing of the proverbial hair shirt, symbolized by the contribution - to protect news corp big wigs especially heir apparent james murdoch, suspected of approving huge settlement amounts to buy the silence of private citizens. perhaps above all, to protect rupert murdoch's proposed acquisition of a u.k. key television network currently awaiting british government approval.

now that i think about the two murdochs and their responses, the utter horror they share that anything of such a nature could happen within their powerful organization, perhaps the most apt line would be captain renault's, as he suddenly shuts down rick's, one of the greatest lines of all time from one of the greatest movies ever made - - "i'm shocked, shocked to discover gambling going on" ...just as he's handed his night's winnings.

it worked for donald moffat's character (along with a massive settlement) in extricating his law firm from harm's way.

it worked for claude rains in following german major strasser's unofficially offical orders.

will it work for the murdochs?

we shall see.

murdoch & ailes ~ a partnership made in....

between the rolling stone article on the genesis of roger ailes' fox news empire and the current investigation into rupert murdoch's news of the world mind-boggling nasty intercepting of phone calls during actual crises, would love to be a fly on the wall this week at news corp!

small wonder fox news is doing its darndest to make the current big story the "war on fox news" by media matters - fox/news corp NEED a mega distraction away from the growing evidence (and negative public opinion) that fox news was carefully crafted as a conservative (in the worst sense) republican party mouth piece & that rupert murdock remains mired in tabloid (in the worst sense) journalism.