From Gallipoli to Singapore

By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT

Right before a clown threw blue shaving cream on Rupert Murdoch and Murdoch’s pink-clad wife threw a roundhouse at the clown, the most powerful media mogul in history was reminiscing about his father.

In a meeting last week in London with the parents of the murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, whose cellphone was hacked by his hacks — digital activity that left her family with a hope that she might still be alive — Murdoch said The News of the World had not lived up to the standards of his father and mother.

Now he was talking sentimentally to British members of Parliament investigating the hacking and Scotland Yard bribery scandal about how his father had seen newspapers as a force for good.

“I just wanted to say that I was brought up by a father who was not rich but was a great journalist,” the 80-year-old Murdoch said. “And he, just before he died, bought a small paper specifically saying in his will it had given him the chance to do good. And I remember what he did and what he was most proud of and for which he was hated by many people in this country for many, many years, which was expose the scandal in Gallipoli, which I remain very, very proud of.”

(More here.)