Pop culture round-up

Remember that scene in The Naked Gun, right after the assassin crashes his car into a fireworks store? As an eager crowd gathers to gawp at the spectacular explosions, Frank Drebin tells the onlookers "Move along please, nothing to see here."

It's a pretty apt metaphor for what's happening in the world of news media right now. According to News International and the Daily Mail, this story has been blown out of all proportion by a cabal of left-leaning Murdoch-haters. There are far more important stories out there, deserving of our full attention. And this has nothing to do with the potentially incendiary contents of Rebekah Brooks' Brabantia bin-liners. So, to keep them happy, this is what you missed while you were busy watching Rupert drinking unicorn blood from a bottle of Malvern Water.

Going in for the Kyle

The toughest thing about gardening leave, as I found out over the last three weeks, is resisting the temptation to channel surf during the day. One minute you're just having a quick look at Lorraine Kelly and wondering when she transformed from Groundskeeper Willie into a Celtic MILF, and the next thing you know it's four o'clock and you've got a banging headache from watching Jeremy Kyle scream at his guests until he suffers a rectal prolapse. Although I'm feeling pretty fortunate about resisting the inexplicable allure of televised Ritalin, it seems that I'm not out of the woods just yet, because ITV has now announced plans to bring the dark prince of confrontation to prime time broadcasting.

Having singlehandedly berated everyone in the UK with a missing tooth or a pair of gold hoop earrings, Jeremy Kyle has been signed up to present a new game show. It's hard to imagine how Jeremy's aggressive, acrimonious style will fit into the chummy, encouraging world of light entertainment, but the clues lie in the descriptions of 'High Stakes'.

Promising viewers a 'totally new format', the show will see contestants competing for a prize fund of half a million pounds in a game involving "knowledge, risk and tension", as they try to answer questions and avoid 'traps'. The only difference between this and his talk show is that the traps won't necessarily involve blood tests and lie detectors.

Then again, don't be surprised if the contestants start off playing as a family team, only to have a paternity test reveal that two of the kids have to sit out the big money round. And forget about quirky sayings like "I've started, so I'll finish" or "It's good, it's not right", Kyle will no doubt add his own unique twist to the Q&A. If he needs to articulate the entire question before taking answers, he can just shout "Oi, I'm talking now, you fat bitch."

Taking a bite out of Apple

This week gadget fans got their headphone cables in a twist, following the revelation that a number of Apple stores in China aren't strictly kosher. The story first came to light when an American blogger visited one of the shiny stores in Kunming city. At first glance it looked pretty authentic - with all the right branding, blue-shirted staff and a distinctive spiral staircase.

But on closer inspection, BirdAbroad noticed that the stairs weren't particularly well constructed, the interior paint job was sloppy, and there was a tell-tale sign outside that read "Apple Store". As she pointed out on her blog, "Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs - it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit."

Even so, she described the retail unit as a "beautiful ripoff - a brilliant one - the best ripoff store we had ever seen". So if the products are genuine, the staff are enthusiastic, and the experience is a positive one, why is this a big issue? Because it's just not Apple.

Unfortunately, this makes those of us who'd buy a shoe box full of possum skulls, if it had an apple logo and a couple of USB ports on it, look like the vapid, invisible-robe wearing wankers that we are. I can try and convince people that I choose Apple products because of their user interface, stunning design and quality finish, but the argument falls flat if I'm put off by the paint job in the store.

As for the staff themselves, they may not have realised that they weren't working for the real article, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. After the controversy about factory conditions in China where the iPad, iPod and MacBook are manufactured, you'd probably want to keep a nice, safe distance between yourself and that iconic fruit.

I'm gonna get you, sucker

When the licensing laws were finally relaxed in 2005, our papers had a field day predicting the widespread carnage and destruction that would ensue if we allowed people to drink Magners after midnight. Of course, once the initial hysteria about alcohol fuelled armageddon had died down, the reality proved to be somewhat different. People still got shitfaced, and our A&E departments continued to resemble the green room after a recording of Take Me Out, but ultimately, nothing really changed.

However, just in case the boozers of Britain are about to find their second wind, we should probably take note of a little experiment that the police on Vancouver Island in British Columbia tried out recently. They wanted to curtail drunken excess once the bars closed on Canada Day, so they took one Councilwoman's suggestion and handed out lollipops. She told the local paper: "The candy shuts people up and calms them down, both through the sugar hit and the pacifier effect. They got calmer after taking the lollipops." The police are now seriously considering permanently adopting the lolly solution, but only if they can persuade local bars to give out the sweets.

Since most of us act like disruptive five year olds once we've had a sniff of the barmaid's apron, why not pacify us with a Chupa Chup? And for those who like to round off their evening with something a little harder, maybe we should start lobbying Barratt to bring back the 'Dip Dab'. You know, just in case.

Say it like you mean it

“I’m sorry I cheated on you – it meant nothing and I thought of you the whole time. It’s just a phase I’m going through. Can we give it another go? I promise it won’t happen again.” Whatever. Just watch out for the flying Denby.

Elton John is a fucking liar. Sorry doesn’t seem to be the hardest word. It’s actually one of the easiest. It takes less effort than a Hail Mary, and is just as meaningless. I should know. I’m one of those people that apologises for everything. Timothy Lumsden without the overbearing mother. It’s become instinctive, like a reflex. I apologise when other people get in my way and I need to squeeze past. And if I have to interrupt a shop assistant who’s busy gossiping with a colleague, I’m the one saying sorry for cutting short the story about Donna’s tilted uterus.

So when the time comes to apologise for some actual wrongdoing, the word ‘sorry’ takes on a decidedly hollow ring. Every time we take stock of our actions, we come to a metaphorical fork in the road. The short cut involves saying ‘sorry’ and moving on. The longer, tougher route, means actually understanding what you’re apologising for, and genuinely feeling contrition for your actions.

As a child, my parents never let me get away with a simple apology. Anyone can shuffle into a room, keeping their eyes fixed on the floor, and mumble a half-hearted “Sorry”. In the few instances where an apology was called for, I had to admit my culpability in whatever misdeed had occurred, so it was clear that I knew why I was apologising in the first place.

So how should we feel about the fact that Rupert Murdoch pulled his best sadface and took out a full-page ad in every national paper over the weekend? Are we supposed to back off, douse our flaming torches, and throw the hunting dogs a pack of Schmackos? Well, I guess that depends on whether we think he means what he said. In case you missed the ad, here’s the full text:

"We are sorry. The News of the World was in the business of holding others to account. We are sorry for the serious wrongdoing that occurred. We are deeply sorry for the hurt suffered by the individuals affected. We regret not acting faster to sort things out. I realise that simply apologising is not enough. Our business was founded on the idea that a free and open press should be a positive force in society. We need to live up to this. In the coming days, as we take further concrete steps to resolve these issues and make amends for the damage they have caused, you will hear more from us."

I don’t know about you, but hearing Rupert Murdoch say “you’ll hear more from us” is about as welcome a prospect as “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too.” If you can stand to, read it again. Notice there's no real admission of responsibility. Or culpability, for that matter. Without any personal pronouns, all that bad behaviour becomes the activity of some intangible third party. A bad seed with little or no connection to Murdoch or his vast empire. It’s like a prison warden apologising for the fact that he runs a building full of rapists and murderers.

In this triumph of PR spin over genuine remorse, it’s not "our wrongdoing", merely "wrongdoing that occurred". Likewise, he says "we are deeply sorry for the hurt suffered" rather than "We are deeply sorry for the hurt we caused..." Small changes, big difference. It's clear from Murdoch's mealy-mouthed mea culpa that he doesn't know, or care, why everyone is so upset. He might profess concern for "the individuals affected", but the sentiment is undermined by his declaration that Rebekah Brooks was his first priority.

Then again, should we be surprised that he struggles to show basic human emotions, like empathy and compassion? Pretty much the only time I’ve ever witnessed cross-party consensus on BBC’s Question Time, was in the various panellists’ viewpoint of Murdoch himself. Without actually invoking the name of Beelzebub, they made it clear that this was a case of better the Devil you know. Even those willing to support the floundering News Corp readily admit that Murdoch could give Emperor Palpatine the willies. And the Star Wars parallels don’t stop there either. Spineless politicians of every persuasion have brazenly admitted that, sure, he’s a force for evil, but they’re powerless to stop him. Which just reminds me of Luke’s briefing from Ben Kenobi in A New Hope, when the naïve farmboy claimed: “Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate it, but there's nothing I can do about it right now...”

At some point, the furore over the phone hacking will die down, and things will return to normal. The sacrificial lambs will do their time, and then settle into a well-paid early retirement. No harm, no foul. As for News Corp, they’ll be too busy focusing on demonstrating how “a free and open press [can] be a positive force in society.” Need an example of how that’s going to work? Try Fox News, Murdoch’s ‘fair and balanced’ cable news channel. Right wing commentators are keen for Fox News to come to the UK in order to break through the ‘leftist propaganda’ churning out of the BBC.

So it’s interesting to note how Fox News has been ‘informing’ its viewers about the hacking story. In a segment called Fox and Friends, which is like listening to group therapy for psychopaths, the whole issue was carefully twisted by the host and his guest Bob Dilenschneider, to conflate the News of the World with other victims of hacking. At one point, after lamenting the broader threat of hacking, the PR consultant states: “Citicorp, great bank, Bank of America, great bank. Are they getting the kind of attention for hacking that took place less than a year ago?” 

Recently, John Cook at Gawker wrote a deeply disturbing article about the heritage of Fox News, revealing that plans for such a channel were initially drawn up by its CEO, Roger Ailes, back in 1970. Ailes, and a number of other Nixon aides, were tasked with getting around the problematic truth-telling of network news, in order to “deliver pro-administration stories” to viewers in the American heartland. As the initial memo stated: “Today television news is watched more often than people read newspapers, than people listen to the radio, than people read or gather any other form of communication. The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit—watch—listen. The thinking is done for you.”

I think I’ll stick with the BBC, if it’s all the same. And if anyone wants to condemn the best broadcaster in the world as being a hive of "left-wing group-think", I’ll simply point them in the direction of Stephen Colbert, who once said “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” As for Murdoch, he can stick his apology where The Sun don’t shine.

Stop the presses

Typical. The News of the World finally has its hands on an exclusive story that the rest of the world is dying to read about, and for once it's not about Lauren Goodger's tits, Lindsay Lohan's ankle monitor or Jason Gardiner's hair transplant. Unfortunately though, it's unlikely to affect the paper's readership figures, since this is one flagship that's already sailed. Finding itself in the unfortunate position of making the news, instead of breaking it, the News of the World has been forced to shut up shop. And Rupert Murdoch must be kicking himself about the shitty timing of this super soar-away scandal.

You might not realise this, but Murdoch wasn't always a bad guy. He may have spent the last twenty years learning how to shoot lightning bolts from his fingers, but back in the 1950s he was something of a young radical. As the son of an Australian news magnate, Murdoch's first acquisition was the Adelaide News, which was pivotal in overturning the death sentence given to an Aboriginal man called Max Stuart. Despite his belief that Stuart was guilty of the rape and murder of nine year-old Mary Olive Hattam, Murdoch was opposed to the death penalty and wrote a number of editorials and headlines in support of commuting Stuart's sentence to life imprisonment.

As Murdoch's biographer Bruce Page observed, Rupert's activism in this particular case was pivotal in defining his future career: "Murdoch galloped into action, but it was a bad fight for him. The truth is it scared him off from ever taking on governments again. He reverted to his father's pattern of toeing the line." But as his power and influence grew, Murdoch realised that it's much easier to toe the line when you're the one holding the chalk.

For years, he's been the unassailable leader of the world's second largest media conglomerate (after Disney), repeatedly bouncing back from countless attacks, even those made by commentators within his own organisation. Popular Fox shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons regularly take pot-shots at their shadowy overlord, although Matt Groening did come under fire from his corporate colleagues for depicting the inexplicably popular Fox News channel as "your voice for evil".

Despite the weight of public discontent against his propagandist techniques and love of media monopolisation, Murdoch continues undaunted in his quest to seize full control of BSkyB, with the buy-out so close his forked tongue can almost taste it. So there's a delicious irony to the fact that a crucial chink in his armour has finally been exposed by one of his own bestselling red-tops.

When the News of the World's unethical practice of phone-hacking first emerged, the outcry was somewhat muted. Although people were incensed at the paper's illegal tactic for sourcing celebrity 'exclusives', no-one was able to muster too much outrage over the fact that they'd been listening to Sienna Miller's voicemails. If someone had to endure Jude Law begging for another chance, the public figured "better them than us". Similarly, no-one got too upset that Max Clifford had been bitten by the mouth he'd been feeding.

However, things took a much darker turn last week when the full scale of the scandal was exposed. According to reports, the families of Milly Dowler, the 7/7 victims and military personnel who'd been killed in service, had also had their voicemails intercepted. Interestingly, Murdoch and his chief executive Rebekah Brooks were quick to issue carefully worded statements about the scandal. But if someone declares that the allegations are "deplorable and unacceptable", is that a criticism of the phone hacking itself, or the fact that someone has had the temerity to accuse his venerable news empire of underhand practices?

Ultimately, none of it really matters, since this is clearly a case of closing the stable door after the horse has tapped in its four-digit passcode and pressed record. Since the story broke, News Corp share prices have been dropping rapidly, leaving Murdoch with no choice but to shut down the country's favourite chip-wrapper. In a statement today, James Murdoch announced that "The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. It failed when it came to itself. The good things the News of the World does ... have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong. Indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company."

This Sunday will see the final edition of the 168-year-old newspaper hit the stands, and not a moment too soon. No doubt the Murdochs hope that this swift action will quieten the voices of discontent and smooth the passage of News Corp's satellite take-over bid. Even so, the scandal leaves us with a number of troubling issues that still need reconciling. For instance, I'd always assumed that whenever the papers ran another feature about Katie Price citing an 'unnamed source', it was Katie herself who'd been phoning the news desk to plant the story. This whole phone hacking scandal means that people like Katie may actually be innocent victims in all this. And I refuse to live in a world where Katie Price gets my sympathy.