Now it's Rupert Murdoch's New York tabloid that has pie in the face.
The New York Post, which usually reports the humiliation of the powerful with gleefully pun-filled headlines and outlandish photo montages, whiffed on the chance to make a splash with the News Corp chairman's testimony on Tuesday before the British parliament.
The news was buried on Page 35, leaving the online version of Vanity Fair to come up with its own satire of how the Post might have covered the story if News Corp did not own the famed tabloid and if Murdoch weren't listed as chairman on the newspaper's masthead.
A spokeswoman for the Post had no immediate comment on how the paper covered the boss's big day, when millions of television viewers saw a man splatter him with a foam pie to the face and Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, lash out at the man with an open-handed swipe.
Vanity Fair showed an imagined Post cover with the headline "News of the Hurled! What the FOX? Rupe takes shaving cream pie during wobbly UK testimony." A secondary headline was "Deng Fever! Whup-ass Wendi defends octogenarian hubby."
In the real Post, Murdoch's testimony failed to crack the first page of the business section and carried the sober headline, "Frank talk at probe; Murdochs testify in UK."
At least a secondary story had some fun, reporting "the $330 million smack heard 'round the world." The story noted that within seconds of Wendi Deng's slap, News Corp shares "spiked 18 cents, adding $330 million of shareholder value."
The Post's tabloid rival in New York, the Daily News, went with the headline, "Humble pie."