O.J. Simpson's would-be publisher, Judith Regan, was fired Friday, her sensational, scandalous tenure at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. ending with the tersest of announcements.Let's take a closer look at this, shall we?
"Judith Regan's employment with HarperCollins has been terminated effective immediately," HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman said in a statement. "The REGAN publishing program and staff will continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group."
Regan's firing comes less than a month after Murdoch's cancellation of Simpson's hypothetical murder confession, "If I Did It," a planned book and Fox television interview that was greeted with instant and near-universal disgust when announced.
First off, I don't care how much power you have at a division of a major American media conglomerate: if you're going to publish the memoirs of one of the most notorious killers (unconvicted division) in American history, that's a decision you might make on your own, but I would expect someone at HarperCollins knew about it.
However, if you are going to promote this book with two nights of interviews on your sister network, and someone at the parent company hasn't been apprised? Then either there's something functionally wrong with NewsCorp, or Rupert Murdoch made her fall on his sword. How many millions of dollars of advertising time was sold, and no one of the sponsors called Rupert and said, "Um, are you sure about this deal?"
Any bets on how many times Murdoch had to say yes before that deal was approved?
It seems pretty clear, based on just the "public face" of things, that Regan was forced to swallow the poison to cover up Rupert's deep miscalculation of the American stomach for nauseation. You'll notice no Fox heads rolled, nor did any News Corp corpses get uncovered. Either Judith Regan had an enormous amount of interdimensional "stroke" (and granted, she did come up with "Growing Up Gotti"), or she's the fall guy. Errr, girl...errr, person.
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