Jack Shafer's article regarding Rupert Murdoch and News of the World's decent into a genre reserved for conspiracy theorists and David Lynch is a good read. In the camp/horror/film noir movie that is playing in my head I can easily imagine Mr. Murdoch hobbling quickly through the winding halls of the news agency, yelling "reverse ferret!"
Here is the opening paragraph of Mr. Shafer's article:
When legendary editor Kelvin MacKenzie ran Rupert Murdoch's London Sun in the 1980s and early 1990s, he would incite his reporters into tabloid action by ordering them to "put a ferret" up the trousers of the powers that be. As Neil Chenoweth writes in Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Media Wizard:
[MacKenzie] would do this until the moment it became clear that in the course of making up stories, inventing quotes, invading people's privacy, and stepping on toes, the Sun had committed some truly hideous solecism—like running the wrong lottery numbers—when he would rush back to the newsroom shouting, "Reverse ferret!" This is the survival moment, when a tabloid changes course in a blink without any reduction in speed, volume, or moral outrage. In the midst of a disaster of its own making, it pulls a ferret out of a hat and sails on.
- Jack Shafer, Slate.com
http://www.slate.com/id/2298691/pagenum/all/#p2
Here is the opening paragraph of Mr. Shafer's article:
When legendary editor Kelvin MacKenzie ran Rupert Murdoch's London Sun in the 1980s and early 1990s, he would incite his reporters into tabloid action by ordering them to "put a ferret" up the trousers of the powers that be. As Neil Chenoweth writes in Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Media Wizard:
[MacKenzie] would do this until the moment it became clear that in the course of making up stories, inventing quotes, invading people's privacy, and stepping on toes, the Sun had committed some truly hideous solecism—like running the wrong lottery numbers—when he would rush back to the newsroom shouting, "Reverse ferret!" This is the survival moment, when a tabloid changes course in a blink without any reduction in speed, volume, or moral outrage. In the midst of a disaster of its own making, it pulls a ferret out of a hat and sails on.
- Jack Shafer, Slate.com
http://www.slate.com/id/2298691/pagenum/all/#p2
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