Rupert Murdoch

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.

Sarah Palin: An Excruciating Combination Of Bombast And Whining

Posted by on June 11, 2011 at 9:21 am. 10 Comments :

Sarah PalinThe upcoming Sarah Palin crockumentary, hilariously titled The Undefeated, has been screening before selected audiences. The reaction hasn’t been particularly encouraging. For the most part conservatives are swooning over its unabashedly reverential treatment of the former half-term governor and defeated VP candidate, while liberals note the historical revisionism that excises all of her missteps and muddle-headedness.

The most surprising critique comes from an unlikely source. Kyle Smith is the film critic for the New York Post. The Post is not only a notoriously right-wing, tabloid rag, it is also owned by Rupert Murdoch, the same person who employs Sarah Palin at his Fox News Channel. So here is what is being said about the movie from its friendliest faction:

“Its tone is an excruciating combination of bombast and whining, it’s so outlandishly partisan that it makes Richard Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln and its febrile rush of images – not excluding earthquakes, car wrecks, volcanic eruption and attacking Rottweilers – reminded me of the brainwash movie Alex is forced to sit through in ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ Except no one came along to refresh my pupils with eyedrops.”

In other words, the movie is a painstakingly accurate representation of its subject. It will be premiering in Iowa next month, followed by New Hampshire and other early primary states. And Fox News still keeps Palin on the air as if she were not campaigning. The producers hope to launch a limited release in mostly red states later in the year. Expect it to achieve success similar to that of the Tea Party-promoted Atlas Shrugged. Which is to say that it will fail miserably. And like Atlas Shrugged, the free market-loving, Randian, Tea Partiers will blame everything but the film’s shoddy production and tedious, predictability for its failure.

The prospects for this project are conspicuously weak. Despite the Pavlovian frenzy on the part of the media, Palin is actually a marginal figure with approval ratings in the twenties. That is not the sort of product that fills seats in theaters. Her books have sold successively worse, and her TLC cable show lost viewers just about every week it was on the air. So where is the audience for this outside of the waning Palin Appreciation Society?

The one potentially positive outcome of this film is that, after it bombs, perhaps the media will grasp that Palin is nothing more than a political pet rock – a gag gift that does not deserve the attention that is showered on her. And since she hates the press so much, and refuses to interact with it, maybe they will stop following her around like lost puppies.

News Corpse Part Of Soros-Funded Echo Chamber?

Posted by on June 6, 2011 at 4:27 am. 2 Comments :

The ultra-rightist Media Research Center has just completed its four part series purporting to reveal the truth about the George Soros domination of the media. The series was authored by the MRC’s Boone Pickens Fellow, Dan Gainor. The first three parts of Gainor’s project were laughably muddled dissertations on an imagined world ruled by the omnipotent Soros.

The allegations submitted thus far put Soros at the helm of a network of dozens of “major media organizations” with a reach of over 300 million people worldwide. The only problem with Gainor’s theory is that he never proves any it. The entire series is based on phony assumptions, ludicrous extrapolations and tangential associations. For instance, Gainor’s idea of a major media organization is the Center for Investigative Reporting, which is not exactly the New York Times or CNN. What’s more, it is also supported by Rupert Murdoch, whose Times of London is a CIR affiliate. Gainor also lists NPR as beholden to Soros despite the fact that his total contribution to the radio network amounted to a mere fraction of 1% of NPR’s receipts.

The fourth chapter of this faulty thesis runs farther off the rails than the three that preceded it. It focuses almost entirely on Fox News as a victim of leftist hostility. The opening paragraph attempts to belittle criticism of Fox News but actually defines it pretty well.

“To hear the left tell it, Fox News has a ‘history of inciting Islamophobia and racial and ethic animosity’ and tries to ‘race bait its viewers.’ One staffer is called a ‘hit man,’ while his network is accused of ‘attack politics.’ A highly questionable study is hyped by numerous outlets claiming that it ‘confirms that Fox News makes you stupid.’ Fox is called simply: ‘The Liars’ Network.'”

That’s all pretty much true. Fox does have a history of lying, inciting racism, and engaging in attack politics. But one of the items enumerated above hits close to home here at News Corpse. Gainor’s reference to the study that “Fox News makes you stupid” was linked to an article I wrote that was re-published by Alternet. It reported the results of a University of Maryland survey that showed that Fox viewers were significantly more misinformed than consumers of other news sources.

Consequently, Gainor is now alleging that I am part of the Soros-Funded Echo Chamber. To that accusation I would just like to say: “I Wish!”

As usual, Gainor’s logic is riddled with nonsense. His attempt to tie me to this supposed Soros plot demonstrates how far he has strayed from reality. And because he cannot produce an actual link between me and Soros (because there are none), he settles for the connection to Alternet. Then he attaches Alternet to the Soros empire by virtue of their membership in The Media Consortium, which has received donations from Soros. However, the Consortium is a trade association whose members are not beneficiaries of Soros. To the contrary, they pay to belong. Gainor’s argument against my article is summed up in a “disclaimer” he extracted, minus the context, from the study:

“This suggests that misinformation cannot simply be attributed to news sources, but are part of the larger information environment that includes statements by candidates, political ads and so on.”

That statement affirms the integrity of the study that Gainor, nevertheless, disputes. However, the study’s researchers did not insert it to refute their own findings. Whatever effect the statements of candidates and political ads had on viewers, that effect would have been produced across the board, not just at Fox. Yet the study’s results unequivocally show Fox viewers as being the most misinformed even considering the “larger information environment”.

Gainor cites as further evidence of the Soros-left’s assault on Fox News that the blog ThinkProgress “slammed Fox more than 30 times in six months.” No, really? When you calculate that down it comes to one slam per week. If you ask me, that’s a fairly restrained schedule of slamming because Fox broadcasts dishonest, partisan attacks on Democrats and progressives numerous times every day. If ThinkProgress reported on Fox smears only once a day that would come to 180 times in six months. How on earth did they keep it down to 30? I’m gonna have to call them on the Soros Hot Line we’ve all been issued and ask them why they’ve been slacking off.

There is a sublime irony in the primary objective of Gainor’s poorly reasoned treatise. While harboring a compulsive obsession with Soros as a left-wing financier of partisan media (which he never proves), he exhibits a severe blindness to his own rabid partisanship. The media analysis organization for whom he produced this paper is itself funded by right-wing media barons like Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers (through their Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation). His articles were dutifully re-published by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and Fox Nation. And his position at the MRC was endowed by oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens.And let’s not forget that it was Murdoch who donated a million dollars to the Republican Governor’s Association and another million to right-wing Chamber of Commerce.

What Gainor imagines to be a leftist cabal determined to bring down Fox News and advocate on behalf of progressive ideology is nothing more than like-minded authors and activists pursuing an agenda in which they believe. The left doesn’t need Soros to slam Fox. We are fully capable of recognizing unethical journalism on our own and taking action independently.

Much of the rest of America is starting to take action as well. The results of the latest Nielsen ratings book for May 2011, show that viewers are turning off Fox News in growing numbers. That isn’t Soros’ fault – or mine either (though I like to think I played a role). It is the result of Fox’s repeated deceptions and overt advocacy of GOP doctrine. Their decision to flaunt an editorial bias rather than engage in honest journalism is the cause of their problems in the ratings and amongst critics.

So despite Gainor’s delusional paranoia, there is no Soros-funded echo chamber. We are not a zombie horde prowling the conservative mediasphere. Nothing like that exists. You can’t prove it. We are a figment of your demented imagination. However, we are coming to get you, Dan. And your little Fox News too. Be afraid.

Primetime Propaganda And The Sesame Street Path To Socialism

Posted by on June 3, 2011 at 9:41 am. 3 Comments :

Ben Shapiro’s “Primetime Propaganda” is a book that perfectly epitomizes the rightist paranoia about liberal bogeymen under our beds, in our closets, and, most of all, on our TV sets. The book is promoted as…

“The inside story of how the most powerful medium of mass communication in human history has become a propaganda tool for the Left.”

In the book published by Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins, Shapiro claims to have interviewed Hollywood’s most important power players and gotten them to admit that they have been secretly inserting their subversive messages into popular programs for decades. But his work is decidedly one-sided and he takes great pride in the obvious. For instance. the revelation that MASH had an anti-war theme is not exactly earth-shattering and it hardly exposes a liberal conspiracy. However, he presents it as a triumph of investigative journalism.

Big Bird - Sesame StreetIn a defensive posting on Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism, Shapiro complains about the criticism his book has received. He is dismayed that critics allegedly focused on the parts referencing Sesame Street, but then proceeds to bash Sesame Street for the remainder of the posting.

According to his own defense, Sesame Street is awash in propaganda. For instance, they broadcast segments teaching kids about divorce. He apparently thinks that subject has no relevance to kids today. The program also aired segments after 9/11 about peaceful conflict resolution. Shapiro asserts that these were designed to steer kids away from retaliating against terrorists, when the more likely purpose was to illustrate how wrong the actions of the terrorists were. Then Shapiro whines about everything from teaching kids not to beat up other kids of different cultures, to using gender-neutral language like firefighter or flight attendant. If that is evidence of leftist indoctrination, then Shapiro is implying that rightists support cross-cultural fights amongst children.

What doesn’t seem to be acknowledged in Shapiro’s book is that the vast majority of television programs in the period of time his research encompasses were far from being dogmatically left-wing. There were more police dramas and westerns than any other genre of program. Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Waltons, or Dragnet, Magnum P.I., and 24, were not exactly peddling liberal doctrine. Nor were the iconic sitcoms from Andy Griffith, The Golden Girls, or Frasier. Why didn’t Shapiro interview people from those shows to ascertain whether they were planting conservative opinions in their programs?

Even worse, Shapiro is attempting to position this book as a scholarly investigation into historical television practices and philosophies. But he provides no historical context whatsoever to support his obviously predetermined conclusions. He lumps shows like The Partridge Family, Happy Days, and Family Ties, into the liberal cabal that “took over your TV,” but fails to note that those years were mostly dominated by Republican presidents and conservative culture. It was the heart of the era that saw the rise of the Reagan Revolution, the Moral Majority, and the Christian Coalition. If the purpose of these pinko TV executives was to reshape America in their leftist image, they failed miserably. Yet Shapiro insists that this was their purpose and that they succeeded in turning America into a socialist state.

For the record, Shapiro is the Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an ultra-conservative organization whose mission is to “combat the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values and disarm this country.” Shapiro was interviewed about the book by Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine who called him “a courageous defender of our civilization – and such a brave soldier on the frontlines in our culture war.”

Shapiro’s previous books were Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth, and Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future. He recently penned an article for CNSNews, a division of the rabidly right-wing Media Research Center, wherein he castigated Jews who support President Obama as…

“Jews in name only. They eat bagels and lox; they watch ‘Schindler’s List’; they visit temple on Yom Kippur – sometimes. But they do not care about Israel. Or if they do, they care about it less than abortion, gay marriage and global warming.”

That exclusionary and insulting diatribe suggests that the Jews are such a shallow people that they are incapable of caring about more than one thing at a time, particularly if it’s about the rights and well being of others. And Shapiro neglects to disclose who designated him as the Jewish certification authority.

Shapiro is a part of the conservative campaign to assault the media and popular culture, and he is tightly integrated with the leaders of that campaign. David Horowitz’s Freedom Center began as the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in 1988 to “establish a conservative presence in Hollywood.” Andrew Breitbart, who runs both the BigJournalism and BigHollywood blogs, wrote in his recent autobiographical book, “Righteous Indignation,” that…

“The biggest point I wanted to make was one I’m still making: Hollywood is more important than Washington. It can’t be overstated how important this message is: the pop culture matters.”

This is a coordinated attack on the creative community that has long been a target of the right-wing martinets of virtue. They demonstrated their hostility for the arts when they orchestrated congressional hearings and blacklists against Hollywood in the 1940’s and 1950s. And they are demonstrating it today as they seek to defund public radio and television, as well as arts institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts. Their censorious mission is reflected in attacks on movies like Avatar and rappers like Common. It is ingrained in the works of the secret society of Hollywood conservatives, the Friends of Abe. They recognize the power in creative expression and they are determined to either hijack it or shut it down. That’s why Shapiro et al are so adamant about silencing overt propaganda like this alarming segment from Sesame Street that he explicitly rebuked for advancing a gay/liberal agenda:

Do you feel gayer or more liberal yet? Shapiro’s new book appears to be the literary equivalent of James O’Keefe’s dishonest video ambushes. Shapiro taped conversations with his subjects and is releasing them without having obtained permission to do so. Of course, he certainly won’t release any tapes that exhibit ideological fairness or otherwise don’t fit his agenda. And, as noted above, we won’t be seeing any comments from producers of the far more numerous conservative-themed programs that reveal their own biases. There is no way of knowing whether the tapes were edited in misleading ways, as the right is prone to doing – particularly the Breitbart right. And notice to whom Shapiro ran first to whine about being criticized.

Expect to see Shapiro making the Fox News rounds with an already announced appearance on Sean Hannity’s show. Watch as he shamelessly bashes the broader media even as he exploits it. And sadly, like a victim of spousal abuse, the media will forgive him and beg him not to go. His Murdoch-published book will get plenty of play from Fox News, the rightist blogosphere, and conservative talk radio as he laments the imagined prevalence of left-wing media. How ironic.

Understatement Of The Year: Sarah Palin Is An Idiot

Posted by on May 23, 2011 at 7:50 pm. 2 Comments :


In an article published in New York Magazine, Roger Ailes, CEO of Fox News is reported to have told colleagues that he thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot and unhelpful to the conservative movement.

Really? Gosh, we never knew. But to be fair, there was a lot more of interest in that article than the sensational headline that is getting all the attention. I’ll have an article at Alternet soon (and here at News Corpse in a day or two) about how Fox News has sabotaged the Republican Party, but in the meantime, here is a brief summary of some of the more salient facts in the NYMag article:

  • Ailes thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot (a given).
  • Ailes threatened to fire Glenn Beck as talks over his departure broke down.
    “…as with everything concerning Glenn Beck, the situation was a mess, simultaneously a negotiation and a therapy session.”
  • Ailes was upset that he could not elect a president.
    “the Fox candidates’ poll numbers remain dismally low.”
  • Ailes tried to recruit Chris Christie to run for president.
    “…he fell hard for Christie, who nevertheless politely turned down Ailes’s calls to run.”
  • Ailes is the GOP kingmaker.
    “You can’t run for the Republican nomination without talking to Roger.”
  • Ailes threatened to quit in 2008.
    “Ailes confronted Murdoch after he learned Murdoch was thinking of endorsing Obama in the New York Post.”
  • Ailes is a true believer in the lunatic theories his network broadcasts.
    “Ailes told Axelrod that he was concerned that Obama wanted to create a national police force.”

Perhaps the most profoundly disturbing item in this list is that Ailes is recruiting candidates for the GOP. How can the head of an alleged news network have that sort of political role? What if he succeeds in persuading Christie, or someone else, to enter the race? How could his network cover the campaign with any impartiality? Not that they would anyway, considering that half of the Republican field is on the Fox payroll, but this would blow any pretense of being “fair and balanced” out of the water. No wonder Rupert Murdoch’s own son-in-law said of Ailes…

“I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to.”

Ouch!

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

FOX News Invents Another George Soros Conspiracy

Posted by on May 11, 2011 at 4:29 pm. 3 Comments :

On the Fox News web site today, Dan Gainor, a VP at the ultra-conservative Media Research Center, wrote an op-ed that asked, “Why Don’t We Hear About Soros’ Ties to Over 30 Major News Organizations?” The answer, as it turns out, is because there aren’t any such ties. In the opening paragraph Gainor writes that Soros…

“…has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.”

Then Gainor fails to provide a single piece of evidence that Soros is connected to any of those enterprises. The article is a hodge-podge of guilt-by-association assertions that are held together by the thinnest of threads.

Rather than support his headlined accusation, Gainor offers as examples of Soros’ omnipotent influence the fact that he has donated to a few independent, non-profit institutions that focus on journalism. The organizations he chose to pick on are ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, and the Center for Investigative Reporting. These groups have indeed received donations from Soros, as well as many other donors. Soros has no executive control of any of them. But more to the point, these groups hardly qualify as being “major news organizations.”

Gainor’s problem with these groups, other than that they were beneficiaries of Soros’ generosity, is that they have some working journalists serving as board members or advisors. Perhaps Gainor would prefer that media foundations put more banking and oil executives on their boards. The wild-eyed players that Gainor is so disturbed by include rabid partisans like David Gergen and Christiane Amanpour. And, again, Soros has no influence over these individuals or whether they accept invitations to serve on foundation boards.

Gainor has utterly failed to support his thesis. Not only does Soros have no control over these organizations, but they aren’t even the big media powers Gainor describes them as. However, Gainor’s column appeared on the web site of a bona fide major news organization: Fox News. And the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, also has control over an empire of media enterprises including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Dow Jones NewsWire, and BSkyB, Europe’s biggest satellite television provider. What’s more, Murdoch is also on the board of directors of the Associated Press, another bona fide big media player.

Finally, it should be noted that Gainor’s own employer, the Media Research Center, is funded by foundations run by right-wing media baron Richard Mellon Scaife. It is also closely tied to Murdoch’s Fox News. When former Fox anchor and managing editor, Brit Hume, accepted an award from the MRC, he thanked them…

“…for the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report, I don’t know what we would’ve done without them. It was a daily buffet of material to work from, and we certainly made tremendous use of it.”

So, as usual, the allegations levied by the right turn out to be the very same improprieties they are guilty of themselves. Some things never change.

[Update] Media Matters reveals that Dan Gainor is “the Boone Pickens Fellow” for MRC, and that Pickens himself is an MRC trustee. Pickens is also a major player in the natural gas industry, which ProPublica has reported on and exposed for its grim environmental record. Funny that Fox News failed to disclose the conflict of interest in which Gainor is engaging by attacking ProPublica for its coverage of Pickens’ business.

Also, Glenn Beck referenced this article on his television program today and completely misstated its contents. He said that Soros funds ABC, CBS, and the Koch brothers. Not only is that not what the article says, it’s downright insane. Or in other words, typical Beck.

Obama Hooks Rupert Murdoch Into Immigration Debate

Posted by on May 10, 2011 at 3:51 pm. 2 Comments :

In a speech in El Paso, TX, today, Barack Obama presented his case for making comprehensive immigration reform a priority. In the course of his presentation he shined a spotlight on a prominent immigration activist with whom he has little else in common.

Obama: Already, there is a growing coalition of leaders across America who don’t always see eye-to-eye, but who are coming together on this issue. They see the harmful consequences of this broken system for their businesses and communities. They understand why we need to act.

There are Democrats and Republicans, including former-Republican Senator Mel Martinez and former-Bush administration Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; leaders like Mayor Michael Bloomberg; evangelical ministers like Leith Anderson and Bill Hybels; police chiefs from across the nation; educators and advocates; labor unions and chambers of commerce; small business owners and Fortune 500 CEOs. One CEO had this to say about reform. “American ingenuity is a product of the openness and diversity of this society… Immigrants have made America great as the world leader in business, science, higher education and innovation.” That’s Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, and an immigrant himself. I don’t know if you’re familiar with his views, but let’s just say he doesn’t have an Obama bumper sticker on his car.

Brilliant move. By roping Murdoch into the discussion, opponents of reform will be put in the position of disparaging their media patron if they criticize the policy of which Murdoch has been a vocal proponent. It makes things particularly touchy for Fox News anchors and contributors who will be challenged to advance their racist agenda without offending their boss. Not that they wouldn’t try to separate themselves from Papa Murdoch. They have in the past been notoriously disobedient with regard to Climate Change, which Murdoch regards as a serious problem, but Fox News regards as a hoax. But every time they wander off in this manner they widen the hypocrisy gap a little further.

Rupert Murdoch’s Climate Change Hypocrisy

Posted by on April 23, 2011 at 3:23 pm. 21 Comments :

The folks at Climate Progress have compiled a pretty comprehensive report documenting the hypocrisy of Rupert Murdoch and his cable news mouthpiece, Fox News. They cover the vast territory between the private and public pronouncements of the rightist propaganda empire.


This is an area that News Corpse has covered in the past exposing the dishonesty of Fox anchors like Glenn Beck and Neil Cavuto, as well as the editorial deceit of Fox’s Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, who has issued directives to engage in deliberate disinformation.

The evidence of a so-called “news” network speaking out of both sides of its microphone are neatly detailed in the Climate Progress article. It shows that Murdoch and Fox are actively seeking to fleece both sides of the flock when it comes to the debate over Global Warming. They want to present a public image as a good corporate citizen for their business partners and clients, but they are also determined to advance the science denial rhetoric that their political allies and viewers expect.

That’s how you can have statements from Murdoch bragging about the environmental responsibility of News Corp as they achieve carbon neutrality, and later watch Sean Hannity as he declares that Climate Change is a hoax. It’s how you can observe the incongruous spectacle of Beck accusing all Global Warming activists of being socialists while a special, green-tinged Fox logo spins at the bottom of the screen during “Green Week.”


Keep it up Rupert. You are building an empire that is rapidly losing the trust of all sentient beings. But at least you can take pride in the knowledge that you are making your viewers more stupid with every minute they watch.

10 Reasons Why Fox News After Glenn Beck Will Still Suck

Posted by on April 13, 2011 at 10:38 am. 10 Comments :

“If I were lying I’d be off the air.”
  ~ Glenn Beck, Jan 4, 2010.
“I’m going to be leaving this program later this year.”
  ~ Glenn Beck, Apr 6, 2011.

There has already been a barrage of media analysis and discussion of Glenn Beck’s not-so-surprising separation from Fox News. For the most part that discussion has been focused on speculation as to the cause of the break up and on what will become of Beck. But any suggestion that Beck’s departure polishes Fox’s reputation is pure folly. The worst of Beck’s haunted imagination is securely woven into the Fox News dis-comforter. The trademark Fox invective, sophistry, and bias predate Beck and will outlive him.


Many in the press, however, are more interested in prattling on about the alleged animosity for Beck amongst “serious” conservatives and his colleagues at Fox who think that his doomsday rhetoric and conspiracy theories give the “news” network a bad name. The purveyors of conventional wisdom are very concerned about Fox’s teetering credibility and are scrambling to defend it:

Howard Kurtz, CNN, The Daily Beast: …many senior Fox executives are relieved to be rid of Beck. [and] …some journalists and executives at the network privately expressed concern that Beck was becoming the face of the network.

George Will, ABC News Washington Post: I think that Glenn Beck and his drift into more bizarre and extreme positions was threatening the Fox brand. So I wish Glenn Beck health and happiness but I think the health and happiness of Fox is served by his departure.

Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine: You can’t be a rodeo clown and maintain credibility,

Matt Lewis, The Daily Caller: My take is that while Beck’s show was individually a ratings hit, he also risked tarnishing the overall Fox News “brand”.

Jeffrey McCall, professor of media studies, DePauw University: Beck was no longer just a personality with a show on FNC. He became an easy target for Fox News critics to characterize him as representative of the entire channel.

These august observers have frightfully short memories. The truth is that Fox earned its nefarious reputation long before Beck arrived and there is every indication that they will preserve it after he’s gone. In fact, it’s that reputation that made Beck such a good fit to begin with and lured him to the network despite his admitted reluctance when first approached. The pundits who are advancing the premise that by losing Beck, Fox can be redeemed are, to put it kindly, mistaken. Here is why Fox News without Glenn Beck will be just as bad as Fox News with Glenn Beck:

1) Bill O’Reilly: Before Beck called President Obama a racist, Bill O’Reilly ventured to Sylvia’s in Harlem and expressed his surprise that the mostly African-American patrons weren’t acting like primitives. And when the First Lady was criticized for expressing her pride that America had evolved to the point where they would elect an African-American president O’Reilly considerately declared that “I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence.” Nice choice of words.

2) Sean Hannity: While Beck may suffer from an acute case of Nazi-Tourettes Syndrome (Louis Black™), Sean Hannity is a personal friend of the notorious neo-Nazi schlock-jock, Hal Turner, and graciously hosted him on his program. Turner won’t be be revisiting Hannity for a while because he is presently in prison serving 33 months for threatening judges.

3) Megyn Kelly: No one can spin a conspiracy theory quite like Beck, but Megyn Kelly comes pretty close. For months she’s been peddling a pseudo-scandal that alleges that the Department of Justice deliberately dismisses all charges of civil rights violations when the plaintiff is white. This has been debunked by the House Judiciary Committee’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Kelly also fronted phony investigations into the alleged terrorist ties of funders of the Park51 mosque in Manhattan. Somehow she left out the fact that one of those funders was Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the second largest shareholder of News Corp outside of the Murdoch family. Kelly has a permanently affixed expression of indignation and a vocal delivery that makes every story appear to be shocking. She is the human manifestation of Fox’s ever-present “FOX ALERT!”

4) Judge Andrew Napolitano: There are conspiratorial paths where even Beck fears to tread. Judge Andrew Napolitano has no such fears. He is a frequent guest of proto-conspiratorialist and Beck inspiration, Alex Jones. He is an avowed 9/11 Truther who says that the World Trade Center attack was an inside job. He believes that the health care bill contains provisions for a civilian military force to suppress domestic insurrection. And he also happens to be Beck’s most frequent fill-in host and a leading candidate to replace him.

5) Bill Sammon: Fox News’ Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, has espoused a hard-core conservatism that predates Beck and emanates from the executive suites far above him. He came to Fox from the “Moonie” Washington Times and authored several books lionizing George W. Bush and lambasting Democrats. He was also caught authoring memos that directed his reporters to dispense a brazenly partisan point of view. For instance, he told them to refrain from using the term “public option” during the health care debate because focus group testing proved that the term “government-run” produced a more negative response. Even more disturbing, he was recorded admitting to a friendly audience on a conservative cruise that he “mischievously” cast Obama as a socialist even though he didn’t believe it himself. In other words, he lied to defame the President and rile up his gullible viewers. Beck must be so proud to have worked for him.

6) Neil Cavuto: The glorification of ignorance is a staple of Beck’s brand, but Neil Cavuto has been contributing to the collapse of America’s collective IQ far longer than Beck. He proudly hosts such respected policy analysts as Ted Nugent, Joe the Plumber, and any random Tea Bagger to help him unravel our nation’s dilemmas. One of his favorite idiocies is his insistence that Climate Change is a hoax because it gets cold in the winter. But Cavuto really shines when he brings in guests whose only connection to the segment is a juvenile pun. For instance, in a discussion about whether Tea Party support was grassroots or AstroTurf, Cavuto interviewed the CEO of AstroTurf Technologies, whose expertise with synthetic fiber products contributed nothing to the debate on campaign organization. Cavuto is the prop comic of pundits who delights in interrupting and shouting down Democrats who are naive enough to accept his invitations to appear.

7) Fox & Friends: While there will always be only one rodeo clown in the vast right-wing conspira-circus, there is no shortage of stooges, and three of them are featured on Fox & Friends. First we have Steve Doocy, who wondered “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that [Obama] spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father.” Perhaps because Obama actually never knew his father who left the family when he was two years old. Then there’s Brian Kilmeade who fans the racist flames by saying things like “all terrorists are Muslims.” And don’t forget Gretchen Carlson, who called the late Sen. Ted Kennedy a “hostile enemy” of the United States. All of these vile inanities were delivered without any help from Beck. However, it should be noted that when Beck made his infamous remarks about Obama being a racist he did it on Fox & Friends.

8) Fox Nation: Any good 21st century propaganda outfit has to have an Internet component, and for Fox News it is the Fox Nation. This web site’s sole purpose is to disseminate the most despicably dishonest disinformation it can invent. There are way too many examples to itemize, but here are a couple that represent the ridiculous and the repulsive. Last July Fox Nation featured a story that claimed that the Taliban was recruiting monkey mercenaries. This absurdity was sourced to the People’s Daily in China. Fox Nation also ran an item that speculated about Obama’s death. This article brought out the hate in the site’s readers who posted numerous comments indicating how welcome that would be. Many of the stories on Fox Nation percolate up to Fox News for broadcast and they they are no less deranged than the nonsense Beck comes up with.

9) Roger Ailes: The president and CEO of Fox News sets the tone for the network as a whole. Roger Ailes was a long-time media advisor to Republican candidates prior to launching Fox News. He is the network’s spiritual leader. If you ever wondered how Beck could get away with aligning President Obama (and anyone else with whom he disagrees) with Hitler, your curiosity was satisfied when Ailes lashed out at NPR saying that “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism.” Ailes’ remarks prove that the hate speech at Fox goes from the top down. It’s not now, and never has been, unique to Beck.

10) Rupert Murdoch: Speaking of the top – Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman and CEO of News Corp, is as high as you can get. He is the company’s captain and conscience. Every material decision requires his concurrence, including his employment of Glenn Beck. While Beck may be leaving, Murdoch is not (yet). It is, therefore, important to note that when Beck called the President a racist, Murdoch responded by saying that “it was something that, perhaps, shouldn’t have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he [Beck] was talking about, he was right.”

Murdoch has consistently stood behind Beck for more than two years, defending him at every turn for every scandalous affair and affront. Even as advertisers fled in disgust, Murdoch never conceded an inch. In the television marketplace it is advertisers, not viewers, who are the broadcaster’s clients. Murdoch snubbed his clients in order to allow Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue and Disinfotainment Revival Hour to continue poisoning minds and influencing elections.

More importantly, Murdoch and Ailes together have fashioned a network whose persona is infested with the same conservative extremist ideology popularized by Beck. The examples above illustrate how ingrained that ideology is into the Fox News schedule in all dayparts. And those programs are augmented by an army of propagandists that include Sarah Palin, Stuart Varney, Eric Bolling, Monica Crowley, Dick Morris, Frank Luntz, and many more.

With this dedicated team of activist anchors and contributors in place, Beck’s departure, though gossip-worthy, will change nothing at Fox News. Beck was not cast off because his message was objectionable, but because he was an ineffective messenger who was alienating the audience. His replacement will surely continue the sordid tradition of which Beck was just a small, irritating part. The Fox mission remains intact and any talk of redemption due merely to having thrown off this defective cog is naive and oblivious to the dark reality that is Fox News.

Stop Federal Funding Of Fox News

Posted by on March 21, 2011 at 1:44 pm. 24 Comments :

Defund Fox NewsA few weeks ago video pimp and propagandist, James O’Keefe, released a heavily edited and deliberately deceptive video that purported to expose an institutional bias at National Public Radio. It was quickly debunked and denounced as a fraud by analysts across the political spectrum, including those at Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze.

Nevertheless, partisans in Congress and agenda-driven conservatives in the press continue to behave as if the video were legitimate. The House of Representatives, on a party-line vote, passed a resolution to defund NPR – a purely symbolic gesture as the Senate is not likely to concur.

The latest attack comes from former NPR correspondent, and confessed bigot, Juan Williams, in an op-ed for The Hill. After first conceding that “NPR is an important platform for journalism,” Williams joins his conservative comrades in calling for federal defunding of NPR. But he also reveals his self-serving and vengeful motivation by slandering NPR in saying that…

“They’re willing to do anything in service of any liberal with money. This includes firing me and skewing the editorial content of their programming.”

Nowhere in the article did Williams support his contention that “liberal money” was behind either his termination or any of its reporting. This is nothing more than a personal vendetta on Williams’ part. He is merely using the funding debate to strike his own blows against a former employer for whom he obviously bears a deep resentment.

However, if the right wants to introduce the issue of federal funding of the media into the public debate, they should be prepared to see their own Fox gored. Fox News has been the beneficiary of government largess for years and it is time to stop it and make Fox pay its own way. As far back as 1999, there have been reports documenting how News Corp, Fox’s parent company, exploited loopholes in tax laws that permitted them to avoid levies that all other citizens have to pay. From The Economist:

“…News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only A$325m ($238m) in corporate taxes worldwide. In the same period, its consolidated pre-tax profits were A$5.4 billion. So News Corporation has paid an effective tax rate of only around 6%. By comparison, Disney, one of the world’s other media empires, paid 31%. Basic corporate-tax rates in Australia, America and Britain, the three main countries in which News Corporation operates, are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively.”

The article goes on to describe how News Corp used a complex network of accounting dodges including as many as 60 shell companies that were incorporated in such tax havens as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Netherlands Antilles and the British Virgin Islands. More recently, an investigation by the New York Times revealed that…

“By taking advantage of a provision in the law that allows expanding companies like Mr. Murdoch’s to defer taxes to future years, the News Corporation paid no federal taxes in two of the last four years, and in the other two it paid only a fraction of what it otherwise would have owed. During that time, Securities and Exchange Commission records show, the News Corporation’s domestic pretax profits topped $9.4 billion.”

When giant, prosperous, multinational corporations weasel out of their tax obligations, ordinary citizens are the ones who are forced to make up the shortfall. That is effectively a tax subsidy for the corporations funded by you and me and all of the indignant Tea Partiers who claim to oppose special interest favors for the elite.

What’s more, federal bailouts to corporations like General Motors and Citigroup provided them with billions of taxpayer dollars, some of which are eventually spent on advertising that appears on Fox News, in the Wall Street Journal, and other Murdoch assets. Additionally, financial institutions that receive bailout funds use some that money to acquire shares of News Corp and to finance and insure News Corp activities including billion dollar motion picture projects like Avatar and capitalizing mergers and expansions.

USUncut is mounting a campaign to expose this sort of corporate welfare. They should add News Corp/Fox News to their list. But why aren’t there more voices objecting to these handouts? Why aren’t Democrats in Congress drafting legislation to prohibit bailout and stimulus funds from being used to enrich partisan political operations like Fox News by funneling cash into their accounts disguised as advertising expenditures. Every time you see a commercial on the Fox News Channel for a Chevy Tahoe or a Citibank Visa you are watching your tax dollars flow into the pockets of Rupert Murdoch and his wealthy associates.

The right wants to defund NPR despite the fact that they have utterly failed to demonstrate any journalistic bias on the part of NPR. On the other hand, Fox News has been documented to be brazenly one-sided over and over again, yet they receive hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer financed subsidies. Well, no more.

Stand Up! Fight Back! It is time to end the federal funding of Fox News NOW!

[Update 3/28/11:] And finally there is some media attention on the fact that there are many U.S. corporations brazenly shortchanging the country. MSNBC via Daily Beast.