Lara Spencer apologizes for any confusion about reality of magical elf

Good Morning America isn't the first news program that has had to apologize for a factual story and replace it with some implausible copy, but last week proved that they might be the silliest. During Lara Spencer's segment on this season's hot new toy, Elf on the Shelf, she inadvertently let it slip that although it is not supposed to be touched by children after they "adopt him" (because giving him a Christian name infuses him with magical powers that are taken away if he is played with), he doesn't actually go to the North Pole and visit Santa Claus. Rather, her film crew showed parents moving the doll, and in one instance, Spencer actually picked up the toy herself.

Of course, this is the biggest scandal since the Killian Documents, as far as The New York Post is concerned.

"GMA Kills Christmas Magic After Elf on the Shelf Segment" read the skybox on the top of the Post's page this morning, which pointed to several Facebook wall rants that angry, illiterate adults posted on GMA's page. Stuff like "“THANKS A LOT U MORONS!!!!,” and "My kid ran upstairs this morning saying the elf on the shelf isn’t real and that parents hide it in the middle of the night!!! I’M PISSED!"

Which, fair enough, but maybe you shouldn't let your kids watch the news first thing in the morning if you're still not comfortable with bursting the bubble on Santa? What about when they accidentally catch George Stephanopoulos and Brian Ross reporting on the Colorado movie shootings or develop a phobia of Bouncy Castles or Sea World? Would you call the show "U MORONS!!" for reporting on the news? Something tells us you'll have a lot more explaining to do, and maybe just sit around with your kid if you plan to watch programs that involve journalism as well as pie-baking tips?

(And this is a minor quibble, but there are definitely more entertaining shows to plop your toddler in front of in the mornings...okay, maybe not Sesame Street right now, but how about some Nick Jr.?)

In any case, the next day Ms. Spencer went back on air and apologized for the misunderstanding, explaining that since she hadn't named her Elf during the first segment, it hadn't been given its magical powers yet and could therefore be manhandled with abandon.

http://youtu.be/AmHmxUMYCVU

Next year, we assume GMA will just stick to their regularly scheduled programming of reporting on "Hunky Santa."

Media magnate Richard Desmond threatened to shut down the Irish Daily Star, which he co-owns, after the tabloid reprinted the 13 photos of the former Kate Middleton sunbathing in France sans bikini top. The scandalous shots were originally published in the French magazine Closer.

"I'm very angry at the decision to publish these photographs and am taking immediate steps to close down the joint venture,” Mr. Desmond said over the weekend. "The decision to publish these pictures has no justification whatsoever and Northern & Shell condemns it in the strongest possible terms.”

The closure of the Irish tabloid, which is known for printing tasteful features such as "Star Babes", "Celeb Babes" and "Retro Babes," would result in the loss of over 120 jobs.

The British National Union of Journalists reacted with British understatement (which we think translates to outrage), calling the threat to shut down the paper "an over the top reaction which should be reconsidered calmly and with consideration of the full implications for Irish journalism and for editorial diversity.”

For now, angry royalists will have to comfort themselves with the fact that Michael O’Kane, the editor responsible for the decision to publish the scandalous photos, has been suspended.

"Independent Star Limited has suspended editor Michael O'Kane with immediate effect, pending an investigation into the circumstances that led to the Irish Daily Star re-publishing pages from the French magazine Closer, which contained images of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge," it said.

Mr. Desmond also co-owns the royal sympathizing Daily Express, which some speculate may be a driving force behind the desire to stay in the Graces' good graces.

The Duke and Duchess are preparing to sue.

Rupert Murdoch is not happy

Police in the United Kingdom made new arrests Saturday as part of "Operation Elveden." The dead-serious probe with the Tolkienesque name is digging into allegations Rupert Murdoch's Sun paid cops for inside information. News Corp's Management and Standards Committee reported the arrests and took credit in the process:

"News Corporation made a commitment last summer that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated," the committee said in a statement confirming the arrests of four "current and former employees" of the Sun.

Four suspects were journalists, a fifth was an officer with the Metropolitan Police. Reuters reported that the Sun's crime editor Mike Sullivan, news head Chris Pharo, ex-deputy editor Fergus Shanahan and former Sun managing editor Graham Dudman were among those taken in.

"Operation Elveden" is one of three ongoing inquiries into how News Corp's now-defunct News of the World gathered intelligence.

[Reuters]

The moral of This Beautiful Life (Harper Collins, 240 pages, $24.99) is the same as that of The Odyssey: If you have a good life in Ithaca, think twice before leaving it behind. Also, watch out for the sirens. Plug your ears with wax, cover your eyes, break your laptop, do whatever it takes to avoid looking at the provocative video sent to you via email. Especially if its star is an underage girl.

In Helen Schulman’s fifth novel, the Ithaca in question is Ithaca, N.Y., where the Bergamot family once lived happily, employed by Cornell University, and which is rich in suburban luxuries like parking, trees and good public schools. But hubris and ambition bring the Bergamots to Manhattan, where Richard Bergamot takes a high-powered job as vice chancellor at “Astor University,” a place that seems to share the same geographical coordinates as Columbia University, as well as its politics. Liz Bergamot, a sometime art historian and professor, leaves her part-time career in Ithaca to become a full-time mother to her two children, 15-year-old Jake and 5-year-old Coco, who is adopted from China.

At the book’s start, it’s the spring of 2003, and the Bergamots are closing in on their first year in Manhattan. For the most part, they have adjusted well: Richard excels at his job, and Jake and Coco are thriving at their new school, a prestigious private academy where they have free admission, thanks to their father’s position. Liz, however, is uneasy in her new role as a stay-at-home-mom and feels out of place among the other “formers”: women who identify themselves as former editors, lawyers, bankers, agents—whatever profession they left behind. Liz’s situation is not, on the surface, that different from her life in Ithaca, but Manhattan is giving her class anxiety: her new cohort is wealthy, while she’s originally from a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx and has misgivings about raising her children in a privileged, fast-paced milieu.

Her fears are, as it turns out, well founded. One night, when Liz is helping chaperone Coco’s sleepover at the Plaza Hotel, Jake is invited to party in Riverdale, where he dons beer goggles and makes out with the party’s host, a precocious eighth grader named Daisy. The next morning, he’s ashamed of his behavior, and his embarrassment is deepened when he opens his email to find that Daisy has sent him a video of herself, performing a graphic striptease. In one impulsive moment, he forwards the video “like a hot potato” to his friend, who forwards it to his friend, and so on, until everyone at his school—not to mention his parents, their friends and hundreds of thousands of strangers—have seen it. Because the video is an email forward, Jake’s name is attached to it, and he is immediately suspended from school. But that’s just the beginning of his troubles.

What follows is part legal drama, part domestic tearjerker, as the Bergamots try to salvage their reputation and keep their family together. They hire a lawyer with “eyes … that emit no light” to take on Jake’s school and defend him against Daisy’s family. The lawyer advises them to leak their version of the story to “some kid reporter … someone ruthless and eager and hunting for blood.” With this directive in mind, the Bergamots contact—who else?—The New York Observer. When The Observer article (“Prep School Pornathon”) comes out, the Bergamots are shocked by the media blitz that follows. The story begins to be tracked not only by tabloids like the New York Post, but by websites like Gawker.com (in 2003, a new addition to the online scene) and UrbanBaby.com as well. Soon, kids are wearing “Free Jake Bergamot” T-shirts. Jake is overwhelmed by his sudden change in status: “In one week, ten days, he and Daisy had become sort of celebrities. Now they were forever linked and pitted against each other, just like divorcing movie stars.”

Unsurprisingly, Liz discovers that she doesn’t have much support among her new friends, who are more interested in dishing dirt about Daisy and her parents than they are in comforting her. Richard also finds that his professional network is thin, and he is forced to take a leave of absence at a crucial moment in his job. Jake, meanwhile, becomes more popular at his school, but he is so consumed with guilt that he can’t enjoy it. Even little Coco feels the strain and acts out at school, dancing lewdly in front of her kindergarten classmates. As the pressure on the Bergamot family mounts, the compromises of Liz and Richard’s marriage, tolerable in a time of peace, become untenable. Liz resents the sacrifices she’s made for her husband’s career, while Richard believes that he has been forced to shoulder too much responsibility and is irritated when his wife becomes depressed. Before Daisy’s video, the Bergamots’ biggest marital problem was difficulty conceiving a second child, but they were able to overcome that with adoption; there is no equivalent solution for Internet defamation.

It doesn’t spoil anything to say that things don’t end well. Like a Jodi Picoult novel, This Beautiful Life is one of those topical horror stories that people read as much to inflame their anxieties as to work through them. In another writer’s hands, it might come out as a cautionary tale, but Ms. Schulman is careful not to paint anyone as villain or victim. Jake is portrayed as a confused, but ultimately well-meaning kid, Liz as an anxious, but ultimately thoughtful mother and Richard as an egotistical, but ultimately responsible husband. Daisy is also portrayed sympathetically, if vaguely. The only glimpses we get into her life occur at the beginning of the novel, when she makes the video, and at the end, when she’s working as an intern at Goldman Sachs—an ambiguous fate, if ever there was one.

Throughout This Beautiful Life, there is the nagging feeling that Daisy and the Bergamots would have been just fine in 1993, but in 2003 they are doomed, caught in the cross hairs of the Internet. This is likely Ms. Schulman’s point, but it’s hard to feel sorry for characters who are undone by technology rather than by any real moral failing or fatal flaw. At times, This Beautiful Life even felt dated—it’s unclear why Ms. Schulman chose to set a novel about sexually explicit material gone viral in a time before YouTube and smartphones, not to mention TwitPics. Then again, it’s worth remembering that one of the most popular video memes of 2003 was “Star Wars Kid,” a video in which an awkward high school boy practices Jedi moves with a golf ball retriever. It was one of the first cases of a video made for private consumption becoming unintentionally public, when the boy’s classmates leaked it as a prank. There was a lawsuit—the boy and his family sued for emotional distress, and won—but nevertheless, today the whole scenario seems pretty innocent.

This Beautiful Life captures some of that innocence, especially when it details Richard Bergamot’s initial reaction to Daisy’s striptease: “For all the video’s dismal raunch, its tawdriness, for all its sexual immaturity and unknowingness, there is something about the way this girl has revealed herself, the way that she has offered herself, that is brave and powerful and potent and ridiculous and self-immolating and completely nuts. It speaks to him. Is he crazy? He feels crazier in this moment than he has ever felt in his life.”

The bewilderment in this passage is recognizable, even in 2011, when we are all a lot more blasé about the things we see online. Ms. Schulman’s ability to unearth such a heartfelt reaction is noteworthy, especially in a novel that seems, at first blush, to be a story about the way the Internet is stripping us of our humanity. Although This Beautiful Life will probably not remain relevant for very many years, for now it’s a good reminder of the complicated ways in which the Internet seeps into our private lives and changes them, for better and for worse.

editorial@observer.com

If only there were a gadget to fix domestic strife.

Now it seems his estranged wife, Jennifer Pogue, is also getting into the writing game. The couple recently announced they were separating after more than 15 years, following an incident in which both Pogues were arrested in a domestic disturbance. During the incident, Mr. Pogue, reportedly upset that Ms. Pogue was at home during one of his visits with their children, is said to have assaulted her with an iPhone. That detail drew attention due in no small part to repeated accusations of Mr. Pogue being a shill for Apple products; he even once built a page on his website to defend himself against this criticism.

Now, Ms. Pogue has offered up her side of the story in a letter to a local news website, WestportNow, that seeks, as she put it, to “correct the misinformation” in the press.

“I was assaulted with my own iPhone while I was lying on my bed reading a book,” she wrote. “I fought to get my iPhone back because I had an audiophile [sic] from earlier that evening of David treating me horribly in front of my children.” That was when she called 911, she explained, going on to accuse her soon-to-be-ex-husband of lying to police, “telling them that I was not supposed to be in the house and that he was acting in self-defense—not that he assaulted me first.”

The letter goes on to explain that Ms. Pogue considers herself a “victim of the press” and that she is “not happy the way people have spun this story,” though her complaints are not specified. Ms. Pogue also wrote that she has been “bullied by my husband’s divorce lawyer,” who threatened to sue her for “any loss in David’s income if I released the iPhone audiotape” and that the money would come from the alimony he pays her.

Ms. Pogue continued to say that the threat is a “perfect example of how victims’ rights are not fully protected and how bullies continue to be bullies.” Mr. Pogue, the so-called “Oprah of gadgets,” has often been the subject of media scrutiny, including in this paper, for a number of business endeavors that seem to violate New York Times ethics policies. The latest controversy involves Mr. Pogue’s accepting a speakers’ fee to offer advice to a group of corporate communication professionals. The Times is reviewing the matter.

As for the charges by the state against Mr. Pogue and his estranged wife, they were dropped.

Reached by phone on Monday evening, Mr. Pogue’s lawyer, Mark Sherman, assured the Transom he would return to us with a “biting” comment regarding Ms. Pogue’s letter, to be drafted between himself and the divorce lawyer. As of this writing, that comment has yet to materialize, and Mr. Sherman did not return a subsequent follow-up call.

UPDATE: The Transom spoke with Mark Sherman—David Pogue's lawyer—this evening. Mr. Sherman noted: "Mrs. Pogue's accusations regarding David's divorce strategy are pure fiction." Also: "In order to serve the best interests of the Pogue children, it would be inappropriate to comment any further. It is unfortunate that Mrs. Pogue is not exercising the same degree of discretion."

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Huff Po VP of Media Relations Mario Ruiz got in touch to let us know Huffington was not removed or escorted off the plane--she was simply seated nearest the exit.

"There was no altercation, or anything like it. Though he was clearly agitated. The plane landed without incident and Arianna got off, first, as she was nearest the exit. At the terminal, she did speak for a minute with security who wanted to make sure she was ok," he wrote The Observer.

Huffington had gotten into a disagreement with agitated Long Island resident Ellis Belodoff, 53, after she ignored the captain's requests to turn off cell phones before take off from Dulles Airport in D.C.

"Hey, lady! Don't you speak English?" the man allegedly heckled Huffington.

Huffington later admitted to cops, "I may have turned [my BlackBerry] on too early," sources said.

Don't they know that's how the Huffington Post gets edited on the weekends?

Both were released without charges, and the non-scandal has Huffington VP of Media Relations Mario Ruiz in prime form:

"There was a passenger who seemed upset. Arianna thought he didn't like the snacks. Guess not. Maybe he was an iPhone fan. As you know, the battle between iPhone lovers and BlackBerry users can get pretty heated," he told the Post.

kstoeffel@observer.com :: @kstoeffel

• HP directors were caught flat-footed by Mark Hurd's departure and had no plan for his succession.
• This lack of a plan caused a 10% drop in HP shares and a loss of "$9 billion in market capitalization."
• Plaintiff Brockhurst Contributory Retirement System also alleges Mark Hurd sold millions in shares before the lurid harassment charges against him were publicized.
• The plaintiffs also claim Hurd's replacement, Catherine Lesjak, sold more than a cool quarter-million in shares a week before Hurd was let go.

The complaint also goes into HP's investigation of Jodie Fisher's sexual harassment claims:

After Hurd hired Ms. Fisher, she attended more than a dozen events in a number of different locales, some overseas. After these events, she often spent the evening dining with Hurd. However, as the HP Board's investigation revealed, the expenses submitted by Hurd in some instances concealed that Ms. Fisher was his guest. Instead, they stated that he dined alone, or in some cases with his bodyguard.

Instead of disclosing these irregularities, say shareholders, HP went into cover-up mode, hiring a public relations and consulting firm to "to evaluate the damage such a revelation could cause if made public."

The shareholders are seeking undetermined punitive damages and multiple amendments to HP business practices for insider selling and wasting corporate assets, just to name a few.

[CN]

But the news-story test is not the only one that Mr. Hurd apparently failed.

Here are others:

• "Encourage a harassment-free work environment."
• "Uphold your responsibility to protect HP financial assets."
• "Create business records that accurately reflect the truth of the underlying transaction or event."
• "Make decisions in the best interest of HP."
• "Provide and accept gifts, favors, and entertainment only if they are reasonable complements to business relationships."
• "We work together to create a culture of inclusion built on trust, respect, and dignity for all."
• "Treat others the way you and they would like to be treated."
• "Do the right thing, regardless of the pressure."
• "Protect all HP assets, remembering that our reputation is the easiest asset to lose and the most important to keep."