In the wake of News Corp shutting down New Of The World over the hacking scandal, many disgruntled former employees are speaking out, detailing how poisonous to the soul it was to work there under embattled former editor Rebekah Brooks. The Associated Press has a story out today detailing some of the personal horror stories of people who worked in the “pressure-cooker atmosphere” Brooks created there, and it was while reading that story that I ran across this gem…
At Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids, refusing to play ball meant being pushed to the sidelines. One reporter who said he went through that was Charles Begley, News of the World’s Harry Potter correspondent in 2001 when Brooks was its editor.
The then 29-year-old reporter said he wore a Harry Potter costume to work and officially changed his name to that of the fictional boy wizard, all part of the paper’s attempt to tap into the Pottermania sweeping both sides of the Atlantic.
Whoa, like, seriously? While that is, yes, all kinds of horrible and wretched, I almost feel like the reporter in question doesn’t deserve much sympathy for actually putting up with that sort of crap. Quit and do something else…anything…hell, open a banana stand for Christ’s sake (THERE’S ALWAYS MONEY IN THE BANANA STAND!). Still, every man has his breaking point, and this one is about as terrible as you’d imagine it to be.
On Sept. 11, hours after the fall of the Twin Towers, Begley was stunned to be chewed out by News of the World management for not wearing his costume. He said he was then ordered to attend the next news meeting in full Potter regalia.
Shaken by the demand, Begley never showed up, and soon afterward parted ways with the paper.
Jesus Christ. I had to read this thing multiple times because I was initially convinced it was an Onion story that had somehow made it onto Google news.
Meanwhile, in more amusing hacking scandal news, the Taiwanese CGI folk are out with their response to yesterday’s hijinks in the British parliament. It and a small collection of other funny hacking scandal-related stuff the internet’s given birth to in the past day or so are after the jump.
Paco, the crime-fighting chihuahua got in on the action…
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(via Topher Chris)
(via The Daily What)
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(via Flubby)