Anthony Lane on Rupert Murdoch, and a media empire in the throes of scandal

HACK WORK: The New Yorker's Anthony Lane discusses a media empire in the throes of scandal; giving some background to the controversy, and providing perspicacious observation to this most interesting of stories. It would appear to me that, with all of the attention the scandal has received, the News of the World itself turned out to be a bigger story than many of those it covered in its heyday (or, perhaps more accurately, when it actually still existed). Money quote:

Murdoch knows something that his assailants will seldom concede, and that renders their call for radical change, in the rapport between governance and the media, both tardy and redundant. The change has already happened; culture, media, and sport are not in Murdoch’s pocket, but the British, not least in their yen to watch soccer and cricket on Sky, have reached into their pockets and paid for his feast of wares. The country is in uproar just now, but outrage en masse functions like outrage in private: we reserve our deepest wrath not for the threat from without, which we fail to comprehend, but for forces with which we have been complicit. The British press has long revelled in the raucous and the irresponsible; that was part of its verve, and it was Murdoch’s genius, and also the cause of his current woes, to recognize those tendencies, bring the revelry to a head, and give the people what they asked for. He reminded them of themselves.

Read the whole thing. In the event that your no-doubt-already-saturated media diet has left you hungry for more coverage of Murdoch and the phone-hacking scandal, Longform.org has collected a number of articles on the man, which you might find enjoyable.