Rupert Murdoch is Late to the Nannygate Party

Photo by Park Slope Lens

What on earth do you think Maggie Gyllenhaal has done to incur the wrath of Rupert Murdoch?

In Sunday's New York Post, Page Six "reported" that Maggie Gyllenhaal may be among the Park Slope Food Co-Op members who have a household employee working co-op shifts. Then the story takes a left turn!  In an uncharacteristic move of what appears to be something akin to journalism, the Post actually bothered to make a phone call to Maggie's publicist, who said that Maggie doesn't have a personal assistant or any "staff," so according to the well-established standards of physical possibility, the story is not true.

Working backward, I figured out how The Post came up with this one.  About a year ago, someone read the post where FiPS broke this whole Nannygate shit wide open-ish. Then, a few weeks later, The Post saw that it got picked up by the New York Times, Gothamist, Curbed, reprinted on HuffPost, and then it showed up on fucking Wikipedia of all places. Racked even called the story one of the Eight Great Moments in Park Slope Co-Op History. (By the way, FiPS is responsible for fully 1/4th of those "great moments," in case you care.)

But Rupert Murdoch was late to the party. Maybe he was busy looking in the mirror and wondering how someone who's face looks like a giant scrotum can get a really hot Asian wife?  (Answer = Having a shit-ton of money.  You're welcome, Nut-Sack!)  So, The Post waits a year or so, and decides to breathe new life into the story by speculating that Maggie Gyllenhaal (one of the only celebrities in the 'hood that they know about) must be one of the chief offenders.  Because she's famous and lives in the neighborhood!  And she's famous!  And she lives in the neighborhood!  And she's famous!  It's gotta be true-ish.  At least true enough for The Post's standards.  Plus, they could accuse Maggie of having "minions," even though, in reality, she's minion-less.

I'll hand it to The Post, when they printed the story, they actually acknowledged that they made the phone call and that their little brain-fart didn't pan-out, you know, uh, "fact-wise."  But they still printed it, anyway. Maybe that could be their slogan:  "Making no bones about the fact that we print the fake-stuff, too!"