Anthony Lane.

In today's New York Post, a variety of scandals play themselves out (most prominently, the unveiling of the maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of rape), but the ongoing saga of Rupert Murdoch is dealt with only obliquely, and deep within the book. A Page 26 review of various magazines out this week deals first with the tabloids (Us Weekly's take on Jennifer Lopez's divorce is juiciest!) before criticizing The New Yorker for commissioning a piece on British tabloid culture, one which frames Rupert Murdoch as a Charles Foster Kane figure.

"[F]or some reason," the unnamed writer of the "Media City" column writes, the magazine "assigns its movie critic to write about the British tabloid culture." (Anthony Lane, the critic in question, lives in England, worked in British newspapers for years, and is married to a former Daily Mail columnist.)

To Mr. Lane's claim that "you cannot hear yourself think" due to an oppressive media culture in Britain, The Post rebuts: "We'd submit that we're a little jealous of Londoners in this regard, forced to make do instead with prim weeklies from the liberal establishment." For perhaps the most substantive statement The Post has made on its owners' travails (though it never once mentions whose legal struggles occasioned the New Yorker piece), this is a bit spicy!

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_