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Unfinished (monkey) business
The giant monkey of Danville was my symbol, back then, of the fin-de-siècle nadir in media fluffery, thankfully obsolesced in one grim morning.

Ten years ago this month, reporters descended upon the small town of Danville, New Hampshire, population 3500, in the southeastern portion of the state midway between Manchester and the seacoast. They came to cover the search for a giant monkey that had been spotted prowling the forests and stealing food from terrified residents. The creature's origins were a mystery. Nobody had caught its image on camera. The elusive monkey foiled all attempts to capture it.

It was a perfect story for a time when the media, and television news in particular, had plunged fully into a careless, anything-for-eyeballs menu of car chases, foiled robberies, trapped babies — anything caught on video or offering a daily-vigil story arc.

As the coverage peaked, Boston TV reporters filed daily live reports from the forest's edge. Wire services took it national. And the ultimate apex in media glorification arrived: a Today production crew put together a story on the Danville monkey.

The morning that piece was to air was September 11, 2001. The new Danville celebrities watched the Twin Towers footage in the monitor while waiting — made up and wearing microphones — for an interview that never happened.

The giant monkey of Danville was my symbol, back then, of the fin-de-siècle nadir in media fluffery, thankfully obsolesced in one grim morning. News reporting was important again, to be taken seriously. The media, and its audience, were reminded that journalism is too precious to waste on simian nonsense.

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A Scandal of Vatican Proportions
In little more than two weeks, Murdoch's News International (NI) division, the maker and breaker of British prime ministers, has been humbled, and — by extension — its US-based parent, News Corporation, humiliated.

UNDER ATTACK As her husband is pied by a protestor, Wendi Deng (bottom left corner, seen from shoulders up) prepares to defend him. Her fierceness would make her a fit candidate to clean up News Corp's mess.

As a public spectacle, Great Britain's phone-hacking controversy, which triggered the close of Rupert Murdoch's gutter-tabloid, News of the World (NoW), is particularly baroque.

In little more than two weeks, Murdoch's News International (NI) division, the maker and breaker of British prime ministers, has been humbled, and — by extension — its US-based parent, News Corporation, humiliated.

In the public eye, Murdoch is News Corp and News Corp is Murdoch, so this loss of face is punishing and public.

Murdoch is a member of an exclusive cohort. Perhaps only investor Warren Buffett and entertainment titan Sumner Redstone are in the same league. The founders of Google and Microsoft may have changed history, but they are essentially hedgehogs who knew one big thing. Redstone, Buffett, and Murdoch are foxes. They have hunted on wider and more varied terrain. Buffett and Redstone have suffered their own reversals, but never a disgrace of Murdochian proportions.

The essence of the uproar is this: as allegations emerged that NoW regularly and criminally invaded the privacy of people ranging from celebs to a murdered child, NI was forced to scuttle a $12 billion cable-television deal.

This, however, is just the overarching narrative. Each granular development seems worthy of its own banner headline.

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