The News of the World phone-hacking scandal is the biggest threat ever to face to Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
After telling the British Parliament that he wouldn't testify, or would testify at a later date, Rupert Murdoch did come and testify for hours.
The damage this scandal is doing -- to his newspaper and TV holdings, to Tory Prime Minister David Cameron's government and to Murdoch's legacy itself -- seems to grow each day.
So how did a comedian with a shaving-cream pie steal all the headlines?
Lesson No. 1: The Press and Public Wants a Storyline
One story. Not two, not three, and not half a dozen.
Imagine sitting in the audience, listening to testimony from Murdoch and others all day. If you ran into a coworker, or were having dinner with the family, you'd tell them about the one most exciting thing.
They wouldn’t want to hear a summary of all the things that happened that day. They'd want to hear about the crazy man who tried to pie Murdoch.
The old newsroom saying is, "If it bleeds, it leads." Meaning that mayhem and destruction are naturally big news that bump other stories aside. The same thing is true of bizarre news, especially when it happens to famous public figures.
Lesson No. 2: You Can't Control It All
Think about all the PR professionals and media experts Murdoch could tap for advice and practice rounds. He could get the best in the world. He could spend days thinking up questions Members of Parliament might ask him and the best answers.
And it wouldn’t matter. Because you can't control every details of events on live TV -- not events you organize and put on and certainly not grilling by lawmakers.
All that advice and expertise could get pushed aside by an angry answer, a killer question by a lawmaker or a man with a shaving cream pie.
Lesson No. 3: Spontaneity Can Be a Gift
It's easy to over-prepare and get a public figure so drilled and programmed that they come off like a robot reading mental cue cards that they memorized.
The unexpected will happen. Roll with it.
In the Murdoch shaving-cream pie debacle, it turned out to be a blessing. The press focused on Murdoch's much-younger wife, Wendi, who athletically jumped up to slap or punch (reports differ, and the tape isn't clear) the shaving-cream pie attacker.
Wendi Murdoch and the pie attack is a better story than Rupert Murdoch answering questions. The pie attack is bizarre. It's something you remember. Wendi Murdoch is smart, attractive and unsullied by the phone-hacking allegations.
Without the thwarted pie attack, the story -- the one story -- would be Murdoch giving damaging testimony.
Instead, the story of the day was how Wendi prevented the pie assault, with many reporters using that as a segue to do a profile about her. Those profiles were basically flattering.
The pie man was a blessing in disguise, unless he comes forward claiming that a Murdoch operative slipped him a bag of money and a can of shaving cream.