Scandalous

Culture Warrior Bill O’Reilly Takes One In The Gut

Posted by on August 30, 2011 at 10:11 pm. 2 Comments :

Fox Nation GawkerLast week I posted a screen grab from Fox Nation that revealed that the Fox News crew had trouble counting in single digits. The image that appeared on Fox Nation and FoxNews.com with the headline, “Gawker and 7 Other Formerly Popular Sites That Are Dead or Dying,” actually had eight sites in addition to Gawker. What I didn’t know at the time was Fox’s reason for taking up space to slam Gawker. Now I know:

How Bill O’Reilly Tried to Get His Wife’s Boyfriend Investigated By the Cops

Last summer, Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly came to believe that his wife was romantically involved with another man. Not just any man, but a police detective in the Long Island community they call home. So O’Reilly did what any concerned husband would do: He pulled strings to get the police department’s internal affairs unit to investigate one of their own for messing with the wrong man’s lady.

Fox News was aware that Gawker was preparing to publish this story about their top ratings draw and had decided to make a preemptive strike. The story reveals compelling evidence that O’Reilly’s marriage is on the skids. His wife had purchased a home in her own name and transferred her voter registration. And her name has been removed from the IRS filings of the charitable foundation that she and Bill had previously managed together.

In addition to the love triangle, the story also features civil corruption via the alleged connection between O’Reilly and his pals at the Nassau County Police Department. It doesn’t help matters that O’Reilly was perhaps dangling a major donation to the department at the time he sought to use the them to extract his romantic revenge. In their defense, Fox was uncharacteristically succinct issuing a terse non-denial:

“Gawker has been lying about Fox News for several years. We are not going to dignify this with any further comment.”

So it appears that the Culture Warrior, the protector of America’s virtue, the bane of Secular-Progressives, is something less than virtuous himself. Gee, who would have known?

Bill O'Reilly

Is The Murdoch Mob Coming Under FBI Scrutiny?

Posted by on August 8, 2011 at 2:16 pm. 1 Comments :

MurdochalypseAuthor and Rupert Murdoch biographer, Michael Wolff, is reporting that Murdoch and his crime family may be staring down charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act:

“Among the areas that the FBI is said to be looking at in its investigation of News Corp. are charges that one of its subsidiaries, News America Marketing, illegally hacked the computer system of a competitor, Floorgraphics, and then, using the information it had gleaned, tried to extort it into selling out to News Corp.; allegations that relationships the New York Post has maintained with New York City police officers may have involved exchanges of favors and possibly money for information; and accusations that Fox chief Roger Ailes sought to have an executive in the company, the book publisher Judith Regan, lie to investigators about details of her relationship with New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik in order to protect the political interests of Rudy Giuliani, then a presidential prospect.”

Wolff documents the magnitude of the corruption at News Corp that has become so integral to their corporate culture that they don’t even regard what they’re doing as corrupt. Wolff also notes the mechanism by which Murdoch has evaded justice to date:

“…it’s because the fundamental currency of the company has always been reward and punishment. Both the New York Post and Fox News maintain enemy lists. Almost anyone who has directly crossed these organizations, or who has made trouble for their parent company, will have felt the sting here. That sting involves regular taunting and, often, lies.”

No kidding. Fox News, in particular, brazenly lies about their perceived enemies who include pretty much any Democrat. Certainly President Obama has been the frequent target of dishonest attacks. Currently Media Matters is the victim of a sustained campaign that misstates the law in order to challenge their tax-exempt status. And the Fox-led assaults against ACORN, Climate Change, immigrants, and voting rights have all been subject to the fabrication factory run by Murdoch and company.

The RICO statutes may be just the vehicle to rein in these crooks. Here’s hoping that the legal authorities will crack this case and bring the Murdoch Mob to justice.

News Of The World Whistleblower Found Dead

Posted by on July 18, 2011 at 12:09 pm. 1 Comments :

Now we have our first official “News Corpse”: The man who first raised allegations about hacking at the News Of The World, has been found dead. Via The Guardian

“Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.”

The Guardian reports that “The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing.” The Guardian goes on to report that Hoare…

“…told the [New York Times] that not only did Coulson know of the phone hacking, but that he actively encouraged his staff to intercept the phone calls of celebrities in the pursuit of exclusives.

“In a subsequent interview with the BBC he alleged that he was personally asked by his then-editor, Coulson, to tap into phones. In an interview with the PM programme he said Coulson’s insistence that he didn’t know about the practice was ‘a lie, it is simply a lie.'”

This is, first and foremost, a tragedy for the Hoare family. But the significance to the ongoing scandal cannot be dismissed. Stay tuned because, as Hoare himself had once said, “There’s more to come. This is not going to go away.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Tone-Deaf Defense Of Murdochalypse

Posted by on July 18, 2011 at 5:28 am. 8 Comments :

MurdochalypsePerhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, but Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has published a self-serving op-ed that seeks to separate itself from the travails of its corporate parent, News Corp. The Journal argues that anyone who thinks there is any carryover from the UK scandal is overreaching. Never mind that the head of the Journal’s Dow Jones division, Les Hinton, was carried over to the states from his British perch at News International and has already resigned as a result of his association with the disgraced enterprise.

The op-ed takes a decidedly arrogant approach in suggesting that they, for some unexplained reason, are above it all and should not be tarnished. They regard the whole affair as a legal matter that is limited to the UK and that the real problem is the malfeasance of Scotland Yard for not properly investigating the crimes involved. The Journal’s editorial conveniently leaves out any mention that part of the problem with the police investigation is that they were on the receiving end of bribes from News Corp.

The only thing more grating than their arrogance is their victimehood. Apparently the only controversy is that the rest of the media world is ganging up on the long-suffering Wall Streeters and their bosses:

“It is also worth noting the irony of so much moral outrage devoted to a single media company, when British tabloids have been known for decades for buying scoops and digging up dirt on the famous. Fleet Street in general has long had a well-earned global reputation for the blind-quote, single-sourced story that may or may not be true.”

It’s not only Fleet Street. The “blind-quote, single-sourced story that may or may not be true,” is the standard operating procedure for Fox News. But why is the Journal so surprised about the moral outrage devoted to News Corp when it, so far, is the only party accused of hacking into people’s phones? And it is the only party, so far, accused of bribing the police for dirt on the famous. By the way, that is very different than the practice of “buying scoops” from private sources that the Journal is attempting to conflate with paying off the police.

The obvious attempt to muddy the discussion continues when the Journal addresses the critical of issue of relationships between politicians and the press:

“The British politicians now bemoaning media influence over politics are also the same statesmen who have long coveted media support. The idea that the BBC and the Guardian newspaper aren’t attempting to influence public affairs, and don’t skew their coverage to do so, can’t stand a day’s scrutiny.”

Here is where the op-ed deliberately tries to steer away from the real problem. Even if we were to concede that the BBC and the Guardian seek to influence public affairs through their coverage, the activities that are being “bemoanded” are those where News Corp seeks influence through intimidation and/or alliance with politicians, not via their reporting (which, of course, they do as well).

Next we see the editorial take another stab at victimhood with an unusual kicker aimed at a favorite bogeyman of News Corp, Julian Assange.

“We also trust that readers can see through the commercial and ideological motives of our competitor-critics. The Schadenfreude is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw. Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur.”

First of all, I don’t know of any mainstream news organization that has given WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur. For the most part Assange has been roundly castigated and, so far as Fox News is concerned, he is regarded as a traitor who should face a firing squad. But the Journal is being stunningly hypocritical in that they themselves have adopted the Wikileaks model in an attempt to emulate its success. That is the express mission of the Journal’s Safehouse web site. Unfortunately, there is nothing safe about Safehouse, which does little to protect one’s anonymity. So unless you have some perverse desire to be ratted out, arrested, or sued, stay as far away from this un-Safehouse as possible.

Finally, the Journal launches into a defense of allegations that the U.S. could prosecute News Corp under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But somehow they spin off such a prospect into an attack on their First Amendment rights. The implication is that any prosecution of a media entity for any crime whatsoever violates the Constitution. That’s a rather broad reading. The Journal complains that…

“Applying this standard to British tabloids could turn payments made as part of traditional news-gathering into criminal acts. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t pay sources for information, but the practice is common elsewhere in the press, including in the U.S.”

Is the Journal asserting that payoffs to police officials is an act of “traditional news-gathering?” In most places that’s a violation of law enforcement ethics and it is the reason that the commissioner of Scotland Yard resigned yesterday.

Moreover, the Journal’s closing argument is that the pursuit of criminal activity on the part of the press has, in the past, netted individuals who were not initially suspects. The example given in the editorial is that of Robert Novak who had participated in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. The Journal notes that others, including reporters at the New York Times, were swept up in the scandal. So What? That’s wonderful! Is the Journal suggesting that the press should keep its collective mouths shut because they might get drawn in themselves? That would be the duty of an honest, ethical press. Report the news – the truth – regardless of self-interest.

It’s as if the Journal is threatening its rivals to stay out of this mud fight lest they get dirty themselves. Really? That’s their defense?

Fox News On Hacking Scandal: Move Along, Nothing To See Here

Posted by on July 15, 2011 at 4:01 pm. 5 Comments :

This morning on Fox and Friends, Steve Doocy interviewed PR flack Bob Dilenschneider in an attempt to whitewash the devastating scandal that has been roiling News Corp, the parent company of Doocy’s employer, Fox News. The discussion was strikingly self-serving, hypocritical, and dishonest. It began with Doocy asking Dilenschneider this question:

Doocy: What do you make of what…this particular hacking scandal with the News of the World?
Dilenschneider: Well, the News of the World is a hacking scandal, it can’t be denied, but the issue is why are so many people piling on at this point? We know it’s a hacking scandal, shouldn’t we really get beyond it and deal with the issue of hacking?

Rupert MurdochOf course! Move along people. Nothing to see here. Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers were caught hacking into the phones of politicians, celebrities, murdered schoolgirls, and victims of terrorist attacks, but that’s no reason to dwell on on it for a week or two. To continue this inquiry is just more “piling on.” Especially since we don’t even know the depth to which this scandal will eventually sink. After all, Murdoch has shut down his largest circulation paper in the UK, canceled his planned takeover of BSkyB (his largest attempted acquisition ever), and accepted the resignations of his top executives at News International and Dow Jones (the parent company of the Wall Street Journal). Surely that’s proof of how unimportant this is. Shut up already.

Dilenschneider goes on to equate incidents of hacking that took place at industry and government sites with the News Corp affair. This is an awkward effort to conflate the victims of industrial hacking with the victimizers and criminals at News Corp. Then Doocy offers this bit of commentary:

Doocy: The company’s come forward and they said, “look, this happened a long time ago – at a tabloid – in London.” Somebody did something really bad and the company reacted. They closed that newspaper. All those people got fired. Even though 99% of them absolutely had nothing to do with it.

Exactly! They fired a bunch of people who had nothing to do with it. What more do you want? And it was just a tabloid, so that hardly matters. But most importantly, it was a long time ago, so drop it already. Dilenschneider told Doocy that it was “a decade ago,” which is not true. The hacking was about six years ago and was effectively covered up. However, the most recent and disturbing revelations just came out a couple of weeks ago and are still coming out by the hour. You don’t see Fox News hammering away at old stories like that, do you?. Well, except for their highly coordinated attack on Media Matters which they have been pushing for three weeks. Doocy and his Fox and Friends pals have not let up on it for even one day. They even have an article on Fox Nation telling readers how to file a complaint with the IRS which they keep bumping up to the top of the “New Stories” list despite its non-newness.

Bob Dilenschneider, it should be noted, is a celebrated PR flack and crisis consultant. He specializes in rescuing the reputations of scoundrels. He is well known for working on the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon’s image post-Watergate. And he was the spokesman for Lou Dobbs as Dobbs was being pummeled for his anti-immigrant rantings.

In this matter Dilenschneider is conducting a textbook resuscitation procedure for News Corp and Murdoch. He tries to change the subject to unrelated incidents of hacking. He insists that his clients have done “all the right things,” despite having issued false reports and engaging in a steady drip of resignations. He declares that there are more important problems for people to focus on and should therefore ignore this one. In short, who cares, look away, we’re innocent.

He’s got his work cut out for him. Luckily, he also has the Fox News platform to implement his campaign of diversion and disinformation. Expect Fox to behave like a wounded mama bear. They are likely to strike out at someone or something in order to divert attention from their own nefarious dealings. Don’t be surprised if Fox News reports this weekend that President Obama was caught sacrificing children to Lucifer.

Murdochalypse: [Updated] The Fallout Continues: Rebekah Brooks AND Les Hinton Bail

Posted by on July 15, 2011 at 3:00 pm. 4 Comments :

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal somehow managed to snag an exclusive interview with Rupert Murdoch who, coincidentally, owns the newspaper.

Murdoch was typically defensive in a wholly delusional manner. He insisted that News Corp had handled the crisis “extremely well in every way possible,” making just “minor mistakes.” Minor mistakes like lying as to whether there was any crisis at all and conducting an internal investigation that concluded that any wrongdoing was limited to a single rogue reporter. The shuttering of the News of the World, the abandonment of the BSkyB acquisition, and several arrests later, those mistakes don’t appear to be all that minor anymore.

Murdoch also stuck by his corrupt son whom he said reacted “as fast as he could, the moment he could.” That was six years after the scandal broke and after young James had paid off several victims in an attempt to buy their silence.

This morning comes the news that the CEO of Murdoch’s News International, Rebekah Brooks, has resigned after steadfastly refusing to do so with the support of her boss, Rupert, who just days ago said that Brooks was his highest priority. So much for that. Brooks’ resignation statement said in part…

“As Chief Executive of the company, I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the people we have hurt and I want to reiterate how sorry I am for what we now know to have taken place.”

The problem for Brooks is that if she did not know what had taken place before this she is utterly incompetent. And, of course, if she did know, she is guilty of despicable and criminal behavior. It’s interesting that News Corp’s second largest shareholder, Prince al-Waleed bin Talal al Saud, told BBC’s Newsnight that she should resign if her involvement in the phone hacking scandal was “explicit”. Hours later she resigns. And remember, it was Brooks who warned that the next year would bring more trouble:

“We have more visibility perhaps with what we can see coming our way than you guys can. I am tied by the criminal investigation but I think in a year’s time, every single one of you in this room might come up and say ‘OK, well, I see what she saw now.'”

She’s right. In all likelihood there are still more revelations to come. The severity of the reactions to date suggest that all we have seen thus far is the tip of the iceberg. Murdoch, a notorious brawler, would not passively close a profitable, 168 year old newspaper, ditch the biggest business acquisition he has ever attempted, throw his trusted lieutenant under the lorry, and acquiesce to an inquisition by members of Parliament, if there weren’t something dreadful that he was trying to keep clamped down. His announcement that he will convene an “independent committee” to conduct his own inquiry is laughable, especially considering that he was forced to assign an unnamed “distinguished non-employee” to lead the effort. Presumably there no distinguished employees to call upon.

There are now a half dozen American lawmakers calling for various investigations from Congress, the Department of Justice, and/or the FBI (which has reportedly already opened an investigation). There have been at least seven arrests. The possibility of this affair crossing the Atlantic and involving allegations of the hacking 9/11 victims is the subject of much speculation. Fox News and its master, Roger Ailes, are not immune to this calamity. And if it goes there Rupert can kiss his evil empire goodbye.

[Update] Murdochalypse WOW! From CBS News:

Les Hinton, the chief executive of Dow Jones & Co., has resigned, becoming the latest News Corp. executive casualty in the phone-hacking and bribery scandal in Britain.

Hinton served as executive chairman of the British unit that oversaw News Corp.’s U.K. tabloid newspapers at the heart of the scandal for 12 years. A member of the board of The Associated Press, Hinton became head of Dow Jones in December 2007.

Hinton said in a statement that he was “ignorant of what apparently happened” but felt it was proper to resign.

The classic defense of scoundrels: Ignorance and/or victimhood. As the chief executive of Dow Jones, Hinton was responsible for the Wall Street Journal as well. And while he ran Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers for 12 years, he worked for Murdoch for 52 years, beginning the association in Australia at age fifteen. With Hinton leaving, and Murdoch’s honorary daughter Rebekah Brooks gone as well, Murdoch is shedding his closest and most trusted allies. Can Roger Ailes be far behind?

This is looking more and more like some horrific news has still yet to bubble up from the Murdochian Hades. I’m beginning to wonder if there are bodies stashed somewhere.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Stiffs America – Pockets $5 Billion In Tax Refunds

Posted by on July 12, 2011 at 4:46 pm. 10 Comments :

Rupert MurdochMuch of the world is presently learning what a despicable old plutocrat Rupert Murdoch is. The still unfolding scandals in the UK have revealed just how low his ethics can descend.

On top of that his Fox News empire has been bashing Media Matters for weeks, and falsely asserting that the watchdog group is receiving federal funds with which to criticize Fox. In fact Media Matters receives no funds from the government. Fox is alleging that their tax exempt status represents some sort of financial gift. These assertions have no merit whatsoever.

The truth is that News Corp is the beneficiary of far more funding that comes at the expense of American taxpayers. I previously reported that News Corp has been stiffing America for years by using tax dodges and deferrals to underpay their fair share.

Now a new article from David Cay Johnston at Reuters confirms that Fox is a deadbeat. Johnston writes that…

[Note: Reuters has withdrawn the column by Johnston due to an error in analysis. The error involves only the $4.8 billion dollar tax refund. Everything else in his article and this one is still correct]

“Over the past four years Murdoch’s U.S.-based News Corp. has made money on income taxes. Having earned $10.4 billion in profits, News Corp. would have been expected to pay $3.6 billion at the 35 percent corporate tax rate. Instead, it actually collected $4.8 billion in income tax refunds, all or nearly all from the U.S. government.”

[And…]

News Corp. has 152 subsidiaries in tax havens, including 62 in the British Virgin Islands and 33 in the Caymans. Among the hundred largest U.S. companies, only Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have more tax haven subsidiaries than News Corp., a 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office study found.

To repeat: That’s $4.8 billion in tax refunds (not credits). So while Fox is hyperventilating over Media Matters (whose entire budget is just a few million dollars), News Corp is walking away with nearly $5 billion from American taxpayers. And they are experts at dispersing their assets throughout the world, dispensing costs to countries that collect higher tax revenues, and profits to countries that have little or no taxes. So that money is likely leaving the country never to be seen again.

Defund Fox NewsIt’s time to stop Murdoch from raiding the American treasury. He is the poster fogey for decrepit oligarchs. He is using money that rightfully belongs to the citizens of the United States to finance campaigns against Media Matters; to disseminate propaganda via Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, etc.; to promote right-wing candidates and issues; to bankroll AstroTurf Tea Party groups; and now, to hack into the phones of kidnapped schoolgirls and victims of terrorism on both sides of the Atlantic.

His immoral enterprise has been exposed, and now he must be made to make restitution. To start with he should pay that $5 billion back. Then we can discuss what legal actions, civil and criminal, should be pursued.

Click here to call on Congress to investigate News Corp’s hacking practices and whether they are doing it in the U.S.
Click here to call on the Justice Department to investigate whether Rupert Murdoch is violating the law.

News Of The Whirled: What’s Rupert Murdoch Up To Now?

Posted by on July 8, 2011 at 1:20 am. 3 Comments :

The hacking scandal that has embroiled Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is one of the most stunning ever recorded. The News of the World is not some backwater rag with a handful of readers. It is one of the largest circulation Sunday papers in the UK. Well, it was. As of next Sunday it no longer exists. And arrests are said to be pending as soon as tomorrow.

The despicable actions of its reporters and executives that brought the paper down include hacking into the cell phones of celebrities, politicians, sports stars, and royals. However, the bottom-feeding scum at NotW went even lower when they hacked into the phone of a kidnapped thirteen year old girl who later turned up dead. And as if that weren’t enough, new reports reveal that they also hacked the families of soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan and victims of the terrorist subway bombing in London.

When news of hacking first broke two years ago, Murdoch appeared on his own Fox Business Network where Stuart Varney, who is notorious for aggressively challenging (i.e. interrupting) liberals, attempted to ask him a question:

Varney: The story that is really buzzing all around the country, and certainly right here in New York, is that the News of the World, a News Corporation newspaper in Britain…
Murdoch: No, I’m not talking about that issue at all today.
Varney: OK. No worries, Mr. Chairman. That’s fine with me.

That’s fine with him? What an intrepid reporter. Murdoch’s response today would be starkly different, I’m sure. In fact, in response to this parade of revulsion, James Murdoch, the heir-apparent to daddy Rupert’s empire, announced that, rather than cleaning house and soldiering on, the NotW would shut down entirely, thus avoiding the sort of scrutiny that would come with a corporate cleansing. This dramatic solution will result in hundreds of staffers being terminated who had nothing to do with the scandal, while the guilty executives continue on in new positions at other divisions.

Rebekah Brooks, who edited the NotW during the period the hacking occurred, is presently the chief executive of its parent company, News International. Les Hinton who ran Murdoch’s British newspapers is now running the Wall Street Journal. Hinton also lead the internal investigation that concluded that there was no widespread wrongdoing at the paper. That’s a conclusion that can only be explained as either incompetence or complicity.

Murdoch hopes that shuttering the paper will allow him to evade further questions about its criminality. There are even reports that by closing up shop he will be permitted to dispose of company records that the law would otherwise require be maintained for investigations. And speculation has already emerged that the paper may actually resurface as the Sunday edition of The Sun, another of Murdoch’s British tabloids (that has its own hacking scandal). So the closing may be a subterfuge that masks the rats scurrying off to another garbage dump.

The NotW was not sacrificed for some moral repentance. This radical reaction has a purpose that is not being disclosed. Nothing Rupert Murdoch does can be taken at face value. He has proven himself to be a ruthless, untrustworthy, and dishonest businessman. That ought to be cause for conjecture as to what sort of chicanery might be taking place at his U.S. enterprises. Who is being hacked here at home? And is the demise of NotW a gimmick to prevent the exposure of even more disturbing revelations?

Fox News Accidentally Reports On News Corp Hacking Scandal

Posted by on July 6, 2011 at 11:37 am. 17 Comments :

Fox News – July 5, 2010, BREAKING NEWS: AN ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN?

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has been battling to suppress reports about a scandal threatening to upend the conservative media empire. Their British tabloid, News of the World (NotW), was caught hacking into the cell phones of politicians, celebrities, royals, and others, in order to find or manufacture salacious stories. But now Murdoch’s own Fox News is reporting this about the illegal campaign waged by its sister company:


Fox News has assiduously avoided the embarrassing story. That would be consistent with their history of ignoring stories that reflect poorly on the company, no matter how relevant to the public interest. Are they now relenting and covering this major corporate scandal? Not on your life. The screen shot above is not actually from a story about the hacking scandal at all. It is from another assault in their current crusade against Media Matters. However, Fox inadvertently snapped a screen shot of the Media Matters web site that featured coverage of the hacking scandal. This is pretty much the only way the story will ever make it onto Fox News.

The headline from Media Matters, “Murdoch Tabloid Accused Of Hacking Murdered Schoolgirl’s Phone,” refers to a particularly despicable incident wherein NotW reporters hacked into the phone of a missing thirteen year old girl who was later discovered to have been murdered. They accessed her voicemail and even deleted messages after the mailbox became full to make room for more messages upon which they could eavesdrop. That action gave false hope to the girl’s family who assumed that she had deleted the messages herself and was therefore still alive. It also potentially destroyed evidence of the crime.

The new hacking allegations concerning the murdered girl have elevated the scandal to new and repulsive heights. In addition, new information is surfacing that reveals similar hacking into the phones of victims of London’s terrorist subway bombing. So while it funny that Fox News inadvertently posts this image that implicates them in a scandal, we must take seriously the threat that dishonest propagandists like Fox pose for our nation.

Proof The Media Care More About Sleaze Than Substance

Posted by on June 16, 2011 at 1:32 pm. NO Comments :

The big story this morning, despite the sputtering economy, painful unemployment, a presidential campaign, and multiple foreign wars, is of course, Anthony Weiner’s announcement that he is resigning from congress. The blatantly twisted priorities of the media were demonstrated when Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi commenced a press conference and immediately stated that she would be talking about jobs and Medicare, and not Mr. Weiner. On hearing this, all three cable news networks cut away.

Just to recap, Weiner is a congressman from New York who is not a member of the Democratic leadership. He was caught up in a “scandal” that involved embarrassing and inappropriate personal communications on Twitter, but no illegality or sexual conduct. He was never accused of misuse of office and his constituents overwhelmingly support him and do not want him to resign.

Nevertheless, the media has hammered at this salacious triviality while underplaying far more important matters that the public wants and needs to know more about. And when offered an opportunity to engage a leader in the House of Representatives on issues critical to our nation, the press turned away as if it were a distraction.

To those who spin this story as being about lying and not about sex, please inform me as to when a scandal about lying ever produced this much attention from media. What’s more, if we are going to start ejecting politicians from office because they lied, we are going to have a nearly empty Capital Building. And for those who recognize that this is about sex or broader issues of morality, then let’s commence the calls for the resignations of Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), both of whom have been caught violating the law with prostitutes.

The Weiner announcement itself was turned into a circus by a heckler from the Howard Stern Show (whom Fox’s Martha MacCallum characterized as the “anger in the room”). But the embarrassment that is the American press corps is no less a clown act when you get down to it. Perhaps the Stern heckler is a poignant symbol of what the press has become.