The week in Media

Heeere's Batty! Yes the new teaser trailer for 'The Dark Knight rises' was released this week. We thought the day would never come, after a long wait and the unhelpful marketing stints from the Warner Brothers team. Oh, and a leak of the teaser trailer.

Good news is it does exactly what a teaser trailer should do; doesn't reveal anything at all! Except for the fact that the Batman has a LOT more enemies than he started out with. Namely, the new villain Bane, played by Tom Hardy (which I'm so happy about; he is a great gangster-esque character and was great in 'Inception', so automatically gets my respect). Despite often hearing about the new additions to the cast, there is no focus on the new cast members, and it isn't saturated with the big names associated to the film.

On this note, please please let there not be a non-Chris Nolan Batman film; Michael Caine has apparently been hinting at more to come, without the director. All that will do is create skeptics. The only reason why I'm interested in the Batman franchise is because of Mr. Chris Nolan.

Another topic that grabbed my interest this week was obviously the News Corp. International inquisition into the UK's phone hacking scandal. Starting off as cases dispersed over the last few years which got media attention (but obviously not enough of it), this has now blown out into a massive deal, involving very public and powerful figures, from politicians (half of which, granted, are just involved to place blame and increase favouritism for their party), to senior members of the police, and of course, the chiefs of News Corp., the Murdochs.

Now, as a university media graduate, I have gathered that Rupert Murdoch is not a man we should like. The companies he used to own have now snowballed, and his ownership is now referred to as an 'empire'. Noam Chomsky would have a lot to contribute to this I'm sure.

I was admittedly so excited to be watching the live feed of the inquisition proceedings. This will be a case people will talk about for years. And we are actually living it as it happens! Anyway, the whole event was so uncomfortable; it was clear that Rupert is like a frail old man, who has been misinformed and clueless for years. This is a great example of how one man can have too much power in one place, so much that his little mignions run free from the company's ethics, in activities he knew nothing of (this is judging by his painfully slow responses and the permanently imprinted expression of confusion on his face- which was then covered by a plate of foam).

There has been talk of the potential of resignation, but all I can see happening is James Murdoch taking over, and playing it safe for the next five years, while his father retires happily with his millions around him, and the eventual expansion of News International, to perhaps even the acquisition of Time Warner! That would be the day.