Murdoch hearing turns into Piegate

murdoch pie in faceRupert Murdoch and son James were finally brought to account in front of a House of Commons Department for Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in relation to his firm’s former-newspaper, the News of the World. Last night we saw hackers pull a hoax on the Sun newspaper’s website. Today was an even more embarrassing day for the family behind News International.

Many would have expected the Murdoch’s to walk away as if they had “pie on their faces.” Not literally though.

In a scene reminiscent of a Saturday night game show, one audience member, or should we say hero, gave Murdoch Snr a custard pie in the face before being escorted out by the Police. They must be wondering what on earth it was they paid the police for in the first place.

Here’s Fox News coverage of “Piegate”

Maybe the best performance amongst all the family members came from Rupert’s youthful wife Wendi Deng. WWE chairman Vince McMahon may well be on the phone at some point such was her slap-down routine against her husband’s attacker

The media has centered on this story for some time and even saw the Wall Street Journal take personal sideswipes at both the BBC and Guardian. The BBC themselves screened a Panorama program on the whole debacle last night (find it here) and the Guardian first discovered much of the evidence including Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked.

Maybe we’ll just have to wait until the 9/11 allegations become stronger to see greater coverage of this in North America. His damage to the media industry worldwide may be irreparable if hacking took place on those victims.