Oh, the exquisite joy of seeing Big Bad Murdoch eating humble pie...

Schadenfreude is terrible German word imported into English that basically says, “I’m delighted because you are miserable.”

As I watched media tycoon Rupert Murdoch eating humble pie — and receiving one on his face as well — at the parliamentary committee hearings in London a few days ago, I could not help thinking that a whole army of media owners and practitioners would be rolling the word inside their cheeks, like sandpaper, only delicious.

Of course, the Anglophone newsroom would have other, more anglicised words to mull: Comeuppance, for instance, or chickens coming home to roost, or day of reckoning. They could also borrow from the Greeks, claiming to spot parallels with a classical Hellenic tragedy, where the hubris of the powerful and the proud is finally chastised by the nemesis of unforgiving and all too often meddlesome gods. Not to be left out, even Kiswahili might contribute our own humble, siku za mwizi ni arobaini.

Murdoch somehow fits the bill of these constructs and there are too many people around the globe who just cannot believe their luck in seeing his misery compounded day after day, and the giant of world media being interrogated by earthlings who only the other day would have jumped at the mere snapping of his fingers, and whose principals used to eat straight out of his hand.

That politicians should be falling over each other to distance themselves from and denounce the man, his empire and the sordid journalism of his stable, speaks to the hypocrisy that is the hallmark of the breed.

We know how much all mainstream British politicians courted Murdoch for the support they needed from his media empire, either to get into power or to stay there.

But that’s the way the cookie crumbles, as they say, and there is nothing surprising about that. Politicians will be politicians, and honesty need not get in the way of serious business.
They may want to look good today by disowning Murdoch and the unsavoury media stable that manifested such crass jingoism when the British were attacking Argentine over Las Malvinas — which they call the Falklands — in 1982 with the famous sinking of the Belgrano.

How the Brits loved Murdoch then, never mind that what their country was engaged in was unacceptable acts of piracy thousands of nautical miles from their shores.

Murdoch gave Thatcher and his other British protégés in mainstream politics massive succour and endorsement, and none of those who see the villain in him today could afford to ignore the four million to eight million print run of News of the World come election time, when the clueless Britishers needed to be told how to vote.

So what the heck if a few phones have to be hacked into, to obtain a few salacious scoops to keep the machine oiled till the next election, when you will once again need us?

A few innocent victims, especially those sweet little angels, fell into this, okay, but have we never heard of the “collateral damage” that we don’t ask for but must take in our stride in the pursuit of the greater good?

I have a strong feeling that the old Aussie reptile might have been tempted to throw all this at the Brits, saying: Not you; I know the likes of you and you don’t add up to much. But he restrained himself, sort of, and is resigned to seeing his personal ordeal through.

The presence of James, his son and emerging reptile, and especially his wife, Wendy, has helped matters somewhat, with Wendy having to coach her spoilt husband in etiquette and mitigating the full impact of the pie headed for the man’s face.

Something may have changed in the way powerful media empires ride over countries, peoples and societies, as long as they are in cahoots with the 10 Downing Streets of the world and the collateral damage they generate is acceptable. Or is it mere wishful thinking?