The Times reports that the hotel housekeeper who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of rape is suing the New York Post for libel. The News Corp-owned tabloid has published headlines alluding to the housekeeper’s alleged extracurricular activities: “DSK Maid a Hooker,” “DSK ‘Refused to Pay’ Hooker Maid for Sex” and “She Saw Johns While in DA Protection!” Whatever one may think about the veracity of the housekeeper’s account, the Post is decidedly one of the sleazier publications in the city.
The whole kerfuffle reminded me of this gem from Gawker, which noted that, after the New York legislature legalized same-sex marriage, Rupert Murdoch’s Post was alone in basically ignoring the story. (The headline for that day? “Don’t Do It!” — the tale of a girl saved from suicide by a “hero cop.”) In the comments thread, someone wrote:
When you read The Post on the subway, you have to hide it behind Hustler Magazine, lest people get a bad impression of you.
Someone hire this person. Seriously, Murdoch’s empire has been quite the embarrassment lately, from the hacked Fox News Twitter feed (not technically the company’s fault, though you wonder if they were using “password” for the account’s password) to allegations that Britain’s The News of the World hacked into the cell phone of a missing girl (among others). The real clincher is that the paper’s editor at the time was Rebekah Brooks, who’s now a News Corp executive. Oops.
Add to that the recent attention Gawker has drawn to Fox News bigwig Roger Ailes’ machinations as propagandist-in-chief of the Nixon White House, and Murdoch looks even sleazier than usual.
. . . So Well Read. . . 