Fox News Must Hate Rupert Murdoch

As a network that has worked tirelessly to promote extreme right-wing views, Fox News has always relied on the fact that they had right-wing executives and owners signing off on their propaganda. Bill, Sammon, their Washington bureau chief, is a conservative author and alumni of the Moonie Washington Times. Roger Ailes, the network’s CEO, is a veteran of Republican politics and PR. And, of course, Rupert Murdoch, Grand Wizard of the News Corp empire, has been publishing and broadcasting rightist rhetoric and disinformation for decades.

But lately, Murdoch seems to be straying from his own pack. There are numerous issues on which he appears to have have sharp disagreements with the people he pays to set the conservative agenda. The most recent ideological departure occurred yesterday when he appeared on Fox and Friends with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In this interview he came out in favor of providing undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. Or as Fox News usually describes it: Amnesty for illegals. He even advocate for using the media to achieve this goal.

Murdoch: Well you just gotta keep the pressure on the congressmen. You gotta do it on the press and on the television. It’s a political thing. […] I think we can show to the public the benefit of having migrants and the jobs that go with them.

Add this to Murdoch’s vocal support for reducing the harmful effects of Climate Change. Or as Fox News usually calls it: An environmental hoax. And on this occasion he also recognized the value of utilizing the media to advance this cause.

Murdoch: We want to help solve the climate problem. We’ll squeeze our own energy use down as much as we can. We’ll become carbon neutral for our own emissions within three years […] But that’s just a start. Our audience’s carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours, so clearly that’s where we can have the most influence.

And remember how Murdoch was dumbfounded when asked about Fox News’ promotion of the Tea Party? Or as Fox News usually calls it: True Americans fighting for God and honor.

Murdoch: No. I don’t think we should be supporting the Tea Party or any other party. But I’d like to investigate what you are saying before condemning anyone.

Rupert MurdochMurdoch’s position on these issues is so starkly divergent from the Fox News talking points that you have to wonder when the dam will burst. Can Murdoch continue to tolerate the distortions that his network is passing off as news when he seems to know that it isn’t? This cannot be dismissed as him keeping a distance from his editorial staff. He has previously asserted himself in the political process, and there is no reason to believe he is now disinclined to do so. Is he just in it for the money and the public interest be damned? Or is he afraid of the monster that he created?

If we were to believe the rantings of Fox News presenters like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Bill O’Reilly, etc., then the only conclusion we could draw is that Murdoch is an evil secular-progressive, radical liberal, bent on destroying America, poisoning political discourse, and enriching himself through a phony global warming conspiracy.

Those are precisely the views articulated every day on Fox News. At what point will Murdoch realize that they are talking about him? And will he take offense or slither back into his villa and count his money? Has he been silenced by the fear of a backlash from the rabid congregation that his mouthpieces have assembled?

Take a look at the situation surrounding Glenn Beck. He has lost over 100 advertisers (he has zero advertisers in the UK). His audience has been cut in half since the beginning of this year. His conspiracy theories have gotten ever more absurd. He has insulted some of his remaining advertisers on the air. He even accused the largest shareholder of News Corp, outside of the Murdoch family, of being a terrorist.

Yet Murdoch keeps Beck on the air. Any other businessman would cancel a program that was bleeding viewers and fell short on revenue. Not to mention a program that spews seriously demented conspiracy theories. But imagine what would happen if Murdoch sent Beck packing. Beck’s disciples would descend on News Corp with a fierce vengeance. The Tea Baggers and the 9/12ers would make Fox News the target of their wrath and create a black hole in the network’s audience base. And they would come after Murdoch himself.

So when you hear reports of Murdoch saying relatively rational things with regard to the climate or immigration, remember that he still has the final say about what is broadcast and published by his properties. He is still the face of News Corp and Fox News. He can’t have it both ways. He can’t pretend to be concerned about the environment while he permits his network to trash the overwhelming scientific evidence for global warming. He can’t pretend to support immigration reform while paying people to demonize immigrants. And he can’t claim to be fair and balanced while providing a platform for right-wingers, Republicans, and Tea Baggers.

In short, he can’t claim to be sane while he is peddling insanity. And sooner or later it is going to be abundantly clear that these departures of opinion define Murdoch as just another enemy of America as perceived by the nutcases on Fox News. If they hate Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore and Barack Obama, then must hate Rupert Murdoch just as much. Can Murdoch live with that sort of sentiment flowing from his own network? I suppose it depends on how rich it makes him – or how frightened.

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7 thoughts on “Fox News Must Hate Rupert Murdoch

  1. Murdoch’s personal views may be right-of-center, but he sure as hell is no “conservative”. Have you ever seen Family Guy? Or the
    Simpsons? Glee? Or Avatar? No conservative culture warrior would
    profit from such “Hollywood filth”. The only thing Murdoch cares about is profit, whether from selling right-wing news to one demo and left-wing entertainment to another.

    • There are many curious contradictions residing within Murdoch, but he is still a committed conservative. The evidence is in decades of his broadcast and publishing history. Just because there are some entertainment shows on Fox that make liberally-leaning jokes, doesn’t mean Murdoch is a liberal sympathizer. Murdoch is a small-government, low-tax, anti-gay, pro-gun, Christian conservative.

      There is a big difference between cracking a few liberal jokes and presiding over a news empire that promotes “serious” people seeking to influence public opinion and even voting. He does not balance his news properties in any way. Can you imagine Fox News giving their three hour morning block to a liberal ex-Democratic congressman?

      Until just a few months ago, Fox Entertainment was run by Peter Chernin, a life-long Democrat. Because he was bringing in billions of dollars, I think Murdoch left him alone. We’ll see what changes now that he’s gone.

      But the paradoxes are indeed glaring. Murdoch, the “family values” advocate, is also a pornographer who publishes pictures of naked women in his UK tabloid. So go figure.

      The bottom line is that if he wants to pass himself off as a rational moderate with regard to issues like Climate Change or immigration, he can’t disassociate himself from the lies flowing out of his TV news programs and newspapers.

      • What evidence is there that Rupert Murdoch is even remotely Christian? Never mind the fact that he built his
        empire by putting naked girls ib his newspapers, or that
        his SkyTV satellite service makes millions from pay-per-view porn, or that his entertainment shows routinely mock
        Christianity. This is a guy who dumped his wife of fifty years for a woman young enough to be his granddaughter. He
        and his family inhabit the cosmopolitan worlds of New York
        and London and Hollywood that have nothing to do with the
        world of the Fox News target audience. He is right-wing in
        the sense that he loves money, but Christian? Hell no.

  2. hmmm. I actually see consistency in Murdock’s behavior, and that consistency is his calculated approach to profit.My sense is that he’s a libertarian on social issues – if the “smut,” as religious conservatives would call it, sells on FOX entertainment, then by all means sell it – while on FOX News, it’s not so much whatever promotes the Republican brand but whatever advances the business, which in his mind mostly coincides with Republicanism. Of course he happens to be conservative, but some issues are more important than others, and if he feels he can afford to be the contrarian on those lesser issues, he gets to claim plausible deniability ie, see, we are fair and balanced as I’ve been claiming all along. or something along those lines. To him, it’s all good.

    • I still think that Murdoch’s politics drive his editorial stance more than his greed. He’s just lucky that they coincide. A few fleeting jokes on the Simpsons just doesn’t counteract a worldwide network of newspapers, and broadcast outlets.

  3. Could we see a situation similar to the Kwangtung Army in China that stopped taking any orders from Tokyo?

  4. I would be careful taking what Murdoch says at face value. He might be pandering to the left in order to placate or distract them.

    I would look at where he puts his money to assess his values, not what comes out of his mouth as a talking point on a chat show.

    He is fully invested in the grotesque news-twisting train wreck known as Fox News.

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