New Yorkers Paying $500,000 A Year To Protect Fox News

In another example of the 1% bilking the general public out of money that ought to be used for the public’s benefit, the Daily Beast is reporting that Fox News gets special protection from the New York Police Department courtesy of New York taxpayers.

“[D]own at Rupert’s News Corp. headquarters on Sixth Ave.–which has never been a terrorist or protest target of any significance–the media empire is guarded by a 24-hour-a-day New York Police Department security detail seven days a week, a patrol that one security expert estimated costs the city at least half a million dollars a year. No other news network gets comparable NYPD protection.”

The article goes on to attribute the all-consuming paranoia of Fox CEO Roger Ailes as a possible explanation for the extraordinary security. But the optics of an enterprise owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch billing a cash-strapped metropolis for security they ought to be paying for themselves is an embarrassment and an outrage. At a time when the NYPD is staffed at near record lows, somebody at the department, or in city government, has decided to redeploy officers from serving and protecting the people of New York to babysitting a wealthy corporation that can afford to take care of itself.

Is this really a wise use of scarce law enforcement resources? Does Fox News deserve protection that no other network receives? Is there an unhealthy relationship between Murdoch, the NYPD, and Michael Bloomberg? These are just a few of the questions that need to be asked at the next city council meeting. And while they are at it, somebody ought to ask why Fox News goes berserk over the cost of policing legal protests by Occupy Wall Street while they are draining public funds for no good reason.

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