Borkowski Media Trends: Southgate, Trump and Global IT Meltdown

Southgate's legacy following his departure, the symbolism of a failed assassination attempt and reputation lessons from Microsoft's global IT crisis.

Gareth Southgate: how will reputation age into legacy?

As Gareth Southgate rides off into the sunset, we will in the coming weeks and months start to witness his transformation from a public to historical figure in English culture.

His eight-year tenure as manager saw England reach back-to-back European Championship finals and a World Cup semi-final; more action at the business end of major international tournaments than in the previous eighty years.

Southgate is credited with fostering a more positive culture around the team, both internally, where egos and controversy gave way to relative harmony, and externally, where a public who had long fallen out of love with the team returned en masse to gleefully hurl pints around Box Parks.

We are often kinder to public figures in retrospect; and already, for some, the magnitude of Southgate’s achievements is starting to shine through his imperfections.

The overwhelming orthodoxy is that Southgate deserves personal credit for these achievements, even while latterly enjoying the advantage of a historically talented generation of footballers.

But sharper footballing minds tend to agree that it’s unlikely he will be remembered as a master tactician, but rather as a statesman in an age of demagogues. A figurehead, a leader, a highly skilled communicator, and occasionally a shield against negativity, Southgate is perhaps English football’s greatest diplomat.

Southgate is the perfect role model for an age in which, tired of mavericks and shorn of genius, all we could hope for was sanity. And that’s what Gareth Southgate may well come to represent.

He has also become an unlikely and peculiarly English cultural icon, from becoming a lyric in an Atomic Kitten song, immortalised in a James Graham play at the National Theatre, and even an unlikely fashion icon. Gareth Southgate might not have been able to prevent his teams playing forgettable football, but his quirks and achievements have ensured that his legacy as England boss is now etched into our collective memory permanently. 

A shot at the presidency?

In a week dominated by the shock of an assassination attempt on former President Trump, the response from his supporters has been fierce and symbolic. With bandages wrapped around their ears in solidarity, they have rallied around Trump, turning his near-death experience into a symbol of resilience and unwavering support.

Even the popular Amazon Prime series, "The Boys," found itself inadvertently entangled in real-world violence, with the latest episode, originally titled "Assassination Run," hastily renamed "Season Four Finale" following the attack, as Prime released statements emphasising that any similarities to recent events were coincidental.

Following Saturday's shocking scenes, the public reactions have been intense and polarised. Republicans swiftly condemned the incident, blaming Democratic rhetoric for creating an environment that could incite such violence, a pivot on the prior Democratic rhetoric following the infamous Capitol attack.

Unfortunately for Biden, for whom the last few weeks have been riddled with public scrutiny of his health/age and questions around his ability to govern, Trump has emerged in a position of strength, helped by his opportunity to seize an iconic shot - bloodied, with a fist raised while shielded by Secret Service bellowing "Fight! Fight!". He's converted a near-death experience into an image of strength. Whatever survival instincts Trump has developed, they were overridden by his communication instincts. In active danger, an opportunity of a lifetime took over, and his fans loved this sign of strength and machismo.

It'll go down as the moment that reshaped the 2024 election campaign, adding a potent chapter to Trump's political saga. It has solidified the cult of Trump, likely guaranteeing his next four years in the Oval Office.

Hard-hitting tech glitch causes global IT outage

Whether or not today's global IT outage has affected you, it's a terrifying reminder of how fragile the systems that prop up our society are. We are bombarded with reminders to update our apps, systems and software that we don't question. We wouldn't get anything done if we pawed over every update's small print. So when an obscure cybersecurity causes an international meltdown because it sent out a flawed software update, there's a sense of powerlessness. Especially when CrowdStrike, the firm responsible, ruled out a cyber attack; this is human error.

For the banks, airlines, and emergency services impacted by today's events, they have easy targets to blame. So how do CrowdStrike and Microsoft respond to such an enormous and live crisis scenario? Microsoft must take the bulk of the responsibility. While this was CrowdStrike's mistake, for a four trillion dollar company to be in a position where a relatively small cybersecurity firm can create such chaos means they're likely either over-reliant on CrowdStrike's services or not properly vetting or testing these updates. While we don't have the diagnostics report, the chief communications officers and their enormous teams will be most concerned about resolving this mess without letting their stock price plummet.

While scenario planning for these moments is vital, the sheer scale of this disaster requires careful next steps that rely upon fully understanding what happened. For the sake of buying time, both CrowdStike and Microsoft must come together and apologise and strike a balance that suits both parties. However, considering the interests of the insurers, lawyers, and executives, advising on something like this is a minefield. Every word of every statement will be thoroughly scrutinised, and producing a time-sensitive action plan that covers all bases is a mammoth task. There will be errors in these scenarios, but rushing things out can extend a crisis, making things worse. We will be following the updates closely, but this is one hell of an unenviable situation.