英国左派错过了向传媒大亨默多克复仇的最后机会

    过去八个月，英国已经对年逾八旬的传媒大亨鲁珀特•默多克进行了审判——通过一位代理人。本周二，这位代理人、长着火红头发的丽贝卡•布鲁克斯被撤消了四项串谋指控，无罪开释。几十年来，布鲁克斯曾经担任主编的两家小报一直让英国政府寝食难安。

    此前，因涉嫌在担任《世界新闻报》(News of the World)总编期间窃听富豪和名流（直至并包括哈里王子）的手机，贿赂政府官员，随后试图掩盖这些行为等罪行，布鲁克斯被正式起诉。《世界新闻报》是一份庸俗的星期日报纸，擅长曝光名人隐私。

    然而，在公众舆论看来，受审的其实是默多克商业帝国的精神特质、新闻集团(News Corp)旗下的煽情小报，以及它们在上世纪80年代和90年代令人震惊的政治权力。在新闻业被互联网和数字技术改变得面目全非之前，这些煽情小报曾经是这个集团的主要利润中心。

    在这些小报的鼎力帮助下，撒切尔夫人及其继任者曾经让奉行中间偏左政策的工党在近20年的时间里无法获得执政权力——在保守党获得某次选举胜利后，《太阳报》(The Sun)趾高气扬地写下一个著名的标题：“胜出的是《太阳报》。”后来，由于不堪忍受保守党的自毁政策，默多克最终推动这份报纸改弦易帜，开始支持工党领袖托尼•布莱尔。此外，让布莱尔的政党、选民和其他公众深感羞愧的是，他的数家报纸曾经在2003年狂热支持伊拉克战争。

    当布鲁克斯和她在《世界新闻报》的继任者安迪•库尔森因窃听电话和贿赂而接受审判时，自由派感觉到，要想让默多克为英国公共生活过去30年来的退化和粗俗化付出代价，同时打破他对英国当权者的控制，这是最后一次机会。周二的裁决肯定会让他们倍感失望。

    最终承担责任、面临牢狱之灾的是库尔森。陪审团已经接受了布鲁克斯的辩词：尽管她当时跟库尔森有染，但她对自己报社内的犯罪文化一无所知。其他四位被告，包括布鲁克斯的丈夫、秘书和保安主管，也被撤消了所有指控。

    工党正在跟现任保守党首相戴维•卡梅伦进行一场公关拉锯战，库尔森的定罪将让他们轻松地占据上风。当初，库尔森离开《世界新闻报》仅仅几周之后，卡梅伦就任命他为自己的媒体主管。

    但他们真正想要的是布鲁克斯，新闻集团英国报纸业务的实际负责人。默多克曾经说她是自己“最重要的助手”。一旦布鲁克斯被定罪，默多克绝对脱不了干系。长久以来，被舰队街称为“丑闻挖掘器(Dirty Digger)”的默多克似乎有魔法护身。现在，这个神一样的存在看起来正在安详地迈向夕阳的余辉之中。（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    For the last eight months, the UK has had the octogenarian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch on trial by proxy. On Tuesday, that proxy–the flame-haired Rebekah Brooks, former editor of two tabloids that have terrified decades of British governments–walked free, cleared on four charges of conspiracy.

    Brooks had officially been on trial for hacking the cellphones of the rich and famous (upto and including Prince Harry), bribing public officials and then trying to cover up the traces of those acts while she was editor of the News of the World, a lurid Sunday newspaper specialising in the kiss-and-tell secrets of celebrities.

    However, in the court of public opinion, what was on trial was the very ethos of Murdoch’s business empire, the sensationalist tabloids that had been News Corp’s NWS main profit center before the internet and digital technology changed the news business beyond recognition, and their astonishing political power during the 1980s and 1990s.

    Those tabloids had helped Margaret Thatcher and her successors keep the center-left Labour Party out of power for nearly 20 years (“It’s The Sun Wot Won It”, it famously crowed after one Conservative victory). Seeing the Tories self-destruct, Murdoch eventually changed sides and threw the weight of The Sun behind Labour’s Tony Blair, and his papers were enthusiastic supporters of the Iraq war in 2003, to the mortification of Blair’s party, voters and, ultimately, the rest of the public.

    When Brooks and her successor at the News of the World, Andy Coulson, came to trial for phone-hacking and bribery, liberals sensed it would be the last chance to avenge–as they saw it–Murdoch’s degradation and coarsening of British public life over 30 years, and to break his apparent hold on the UK establishment. Their hopes will have been disappointed by Tuesday’s verdicts.

    The buck has stopped at Coulson, who now faces jail. The jury has accepted Brooks’s defense that, despite having an affair with Coulson at the time, she knew nothing of the culture of criminality at the paper she was running. Four other defendants, including Brooks’s husband, secretary and head of security, were also cleared of all charges.

    Coulson’s conviction will allow the Labour Party to score some easy PR points off the current Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, who made Coulson his head of communications only weeks after he left the News of the World.

    But it was Brooks they wanted. Brooks, whom Murdoch had trusted implicitly with his UK newspaper business; whom he had called his “top priority”; and from whom he could not possibly have distanced himself in the event of a guilty verdict. The ‘Dirty Digger’, as Fleet Street knows him, has often seemed to lead a charmed existence. It’s an existence which looks like heading off serenely into the sunset now.