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Showing posts with label James Murdoch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Murdoch. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The world is run by Tiger Wives, Tiger Moms





The world is run by Tiger Wives

Wendi Deng is not alone in lashing out when her spouse is under fire.

Wendi Deng Murdoch, Cherie Blair and Melania Trump are formidable in defence of their husbands-The world is run by Tiger Wives
Wendi Deng Murdoch, Cherie Blair and Melania Trump are formidable in defence of their husbands Photo: REX FEATURES/GETTY,By Cristina Odone

The hearings were beginning to pall. What had started as the trial of the media’s biggest mogul was settling into the siesta of the patriarch: Rupert Murdoch seemed to be talking in his sleep, while James Murdoch fanned away the MPs’ annoying questions, lest they disturb Dad.

Viewers longing for drama felt short-changed. None of the lawmakers had laid a glove on the media mogul. And then – splat! – the (slapstick) comedian Jonathan May-Bowles threw a “pie” of shaving foam at Murdoch Senior and unleashed the Tiger Wife.

In an instant, Wendi Deng, Murdoch’s Chinese-American spouse, leapt to her feet and sprang past bystanders to pummel her husband’s assailant. MPs, Murdochs and media types could only gape, electrified as proceedings fast-forwarded from Perry Mason to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

By the time Rupert Murdoch’s bodyguard had reached his master, the 42-year-old Wendi had landed a sensational right-hook on her opponent.

She then gained her husband’s side, and gently cleaned his face of foam. Within minutes, Deng was the toast of Twitter: hailed as a “smack-down sister” in her native China, and as a heroine and stunning show-stopper everywhere else.

Those who know Wendi well (and they include Tony Blair, Mark Zuckerman and Bono) won’t have batted an eyelid at her jaw-dropping performance. Rupert Murdoch’s third wife has form.

A volleyball player from southern China doesn’t climb to the top (Murdoch’s personal fortune remains a healthy $340 million) without fierce determination. Other people on Wendi’s ascent have already experienced her fury.

The first victim was Joyce Cherry, a pleasant American who, together with husband Jake, befriended Wendi during their trip to China. Impressed by the teenager’s brilliance and thirst for self-improvement, Joyce and Jake sponsored Wendi’s application for a student visa to America. Alas, 19-year-old Wendi soon bewitched Jake, who left poor old Joyce to marry their young protégée.

Victim number two was Jake himself: his usefulness came to an end a few months later when Wendi, now armed with the right papers, won a place to study business at Yale University.



Days from graduation, Wendi had a job at the Murdoch-owned Star TV, where she quickly caught the Big Boss’s eye. Hence the third corpse in the trail to marry Murdoch: Rupert’s second wife, Anna.

Within 17 days of his divorce, Wendi wed Rupert. If the Wendi house conceals a few skeletons, it also offers glimpses of her protective instincts.

Conscious of the 38-year gap between them, Wendi has placed Rupert on a tough regime of 6am weightlifting, washed down by a fruit and soy protein cocktail. She wags her finger at his workaholic schedule and has hired a personal trainer to put him through his paces (even at the price of her husband turning up on front pages in baseball cap and tracksuit).

None of this marital nurturing distracts Wendi from pursuing her own agenda: she has just released a film, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, that aims to promote a more positive image of China.

She enjoys a glittering social life, attending film premieres and art gallery openings. And she remains her husband’s chief adviser on his business in China.

Yet Wendi the film producer, like Wendi the business consultant or Wendi the mother of Rupert’s young daughters Chloe and Grace, has failed to fire our imagination. But Wendi Deng, invincible Tiger Wife, has transformed Rupert Murdoch’s image around the globe – from dodderer in the dock to prized partner in his wife’s life.

In a culture that mourns marriage as a moribund institution, one spouse leaping passionately to the other’s defence fills us with admiration. Even the most hardened cynics couldn’t help thinking, as the warrior in a pink blazer bounced into the ring: “Wow, she really believes in this union!”

Wendi Deng’s slap didn’t just scotch rumours that hers was a sham marriage: a purely trophy wife would have winked at the assailant for giving the old man a heart-stopping scare. With a quick right hook, she jumped to the head of the queue of the defenders of matrimony. It is a short but colourful roll-call that stretches from Cherie Blair, to Anne Sinclair (aka Mme Strauss Khan), Melania Trump and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

From the moment she moved into No 10, Cherie Blair was under constant attack for her (supposed) greed, stinginess, and self-importance. She let the criticisms bounce off her like spring rain. But let anyone touch her Tony, and Mrs Blair roared. She hissed at the ungrateful electorate that did not deserve a paragon of virtue like her husband; she gnashed her teeth at the sleazy media that insinuated Tony was a disappointment.

Her manner resembled the termagant’s fury rather than the bride’s solicitude, but no one could doubt Cherie’s heartfelt loyalty. It won her few fans: among the cheats and cuckolds of Westminster, the sight of a prime minister’s wife defending her husband was unusual; it also reassured voters that despite new Labour’s destruction of cherished institutions from the House of Lords to foxhunting, marriage would remain intact.

Far more testing has been Anne Sinclair’s lot. When her charismatic husband Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested on rape charges in New York, the French TV journalist sprang to his defence: “I do not believe for a single second the accusations levelled against my husband.” She flew to stand by her man and stumped up the $1 million bail to move him from prison to his plush Manhattan apartment.

Such wifely devotion may yet save the former IMF chief’s political career: his wife’s total support, as much as the derailing of the case against him, may prove a great boost to DSK’s credibility as a presidential candidate.

Her counterpart in the French presidential contest, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, also wants to show the world that she looks out for her husband’s interests. The First Lady of France, pregnant but still displaying every sign of focus and competitiveness, has imposed a culture vulture’s menu on her philistine hubby: he is to watch films by Alfred Hitchcock, as well as Russia’s Andrei Tarkovsky; and read the French classics, from Balzac to Hugo.

Driving this self-improvement, say insiders at the Elysée Palace, is Carla’s ambition: she wants her man to be re-elected, and fears his present lowbrow image won’t do.

Nor should we forget Melania Trump, fearlessly vocal in her millionaire husband’s defence: Donald Trump is “brilliant”, everyone is envious of his success, and America should be so lucky to have him as their Republican Party candidate.

But Mrs T also gives us a revealing insight into their marriage when she confides that she has two children: “I have a big boy, Donald, and a little boy, Barron. I take care of both very well.”

Tiger Wife often needs to play Tiger Mother, it would seem.

The Tiger Wives’ Club is small but perfectly informed: these women know that their husbands need their commitment and support. In her eagerness to make her man shine, the Tiger Wife will disarm any assailant. She knows that her spouse is less than he seems; and that she, in fact, is rather more. She’s plucky; he’s lucky.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

News of the World, Murdoch hacking scandals: 'Shocked, appalled and ashamed', attacked!




'Shocked, appalled and ashamed': quotes from Murdoch hacking hearing 

Rupert Murdoch ... the most humble day of his life. Rupert Murdoch ... the most humble day of his life. Photo: Reuters


Selected quotes from the Murdochs' appearance at the parliamentary inquiry into media phone hacking, which produced reactions ranging from table-banging, to abject apology, to staunch denial of any knowledge of wrongdoing.

- "I just want to say one sentence. This is the most humble day of my life." - Rupert Murdoch's opening remarks.

- "No." - Rupert Murdoch's remark when asked by Labour MP Jim Sheridan if he accepted that "ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco".



- "The people that I trusted to run it [his media empire] and then maybe the people they trusted." - Rupert Murdoch when asked who he blamed.

- "We felt ashamed at what happened. We had broken our trust with our readers." - Rupert Murdoch explains why the News of the World tabloid was shut down after 168 years.

- "We have seen no evidence of that at all and as far as we know the FBI haven't either." - Murdoch on allegations the paper hacked 9/11 victims.

- "I would like to say just how sorry I am and how sorry we are, to particularly the victims of illegal voicemail interceptions, and to their families." - James Murdoch's opening statement.

- "The News of the World is less than 1 per cent of our company. I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished people, professionals in their work. I'm spread watching and appointing people whom I trust to run those divisions." - Rupert Murdoch on his empire.

- "Endemic is a very hard, a very wide ranging word. I also have to be very careful not to prejudice the course of justice that is taking place now." - Rupert Murdoch in answer to Labour Party lawmaker Tom Watson, who asked Murdoch when he became aware that criminality was "endemic" at the News of the World.

- "I was absolutely shocked, appalled and ashamed when I heard about the Milly Dowler case only two weeks ago." - Rupert Murdoch on allegations that the News of the World hacked into the murdered teenager's phone.

"I was invited within days [of the general election in May last year] to have a cup of tea to be thanked for the support by Mr Cameron. No other conversation took place." - Rupert Murdoch revealing that he had been invited to have a cup of tea with Prime Minister David Cameron within days of the election that brought Cameron to power at the head of a coalition government.

- "There are no immediate plans for that." - James Murdoch, saying no plans were afoot for News International, the British newspaper wing of News Corp, to launch a new Sunday tabloid to replace the News of the World.

- "Because I believed her and I trusted her and I do trust her. In the event she just insisted. She was at a point of extreme anguish." - Rupert Murdoch when asked why he did not accept former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks's original offer to resign before she finally quit last Friday.

- "They caught us with dirty hands." - Rupert Murdoch on opposition within the media industry to his abandoned BSkyB bid.

- "Your wife has a very good left hook [sic]." - British Labour MP Tom Watson after protester and comedian Jonnie Marbles pelted Rupert Murdoch with foam and his wife Wendi hit back.



- "You naughty billionaire." - Jonnie Marbles after the attack.

Rupert Murdoch was attacked with what appears to be a pie during a hearing before members of Parliament. The videotape appears to show a protester heading toward Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, then lunged at the protester.

  - "As Mr Murdoch himself said, I'm afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation." - Jonnie Marbles to reporters later.

- "Once that trust was broken, we felt that that was the right decision. Of course, it wasn't the right decision for the hundreds of journalists who worked on there, had done nothing wrong, were in no way responsible. Every single one of them [the journalists] will be offered a job." - Rebekah Brooks on the decision to close the News of the World.

AFP  Newscribe : get free news in real time

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The world is run by Tiger Wives, Tiger Moms