Rupert Murdoch

Glenn Beck Gone Wild: Day Two Of Soros-Fest

Posted by on November 11, 2010 at 1:01 am. 4 Comments :

Glenn BeckOn the second installment of Glenn Beck’s Soros-palooza, Beck had so little to say that he pretty much repeated the same delusional ravings as the day before. This is nothing new for Beck who is known for regurgitating the same old conspiracy nonsense day after day. Anyone who watches regularly has seen the same video of Van Jones hundreds of times.

The principle problem with Beck not producing any new content for today’s show is that…well…now I don’t have anything to write about. Obviously this was Beck’s intention. He deliberately aired an hour of leftovers to deprive me of material for my blog. Well, I’ve got news for him. I can be just as redundant as he is any day of the week.

So let’s start with the fact that Beck worked over the same checklist of steps to control any country. Here’s what I wrote yesterday about that:

  • Form a shadow government: Beck begins by pointing fingers at the Center for American Progress, but that’s a dodge because the real target could just as likely be the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute.
  • Control the airwaves: In a bit of misdirection, Beck cites NPR and Free Press, however they are hardly major players in the media. The top rated cable news channel is Fox News. Most of the rest of the media is owned by giant, multinational corporations run by conservatives. And radio is dominated by names like Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh.
  • Destabilize the state: Here Beck suggests that the Puppet Master would cause a political or economic crisis. Perhaps like the one that sent the country into a tailspin in late 2008?
  • Provoke an election crisis: Anyone who watched Fox News in the days leading up to the election couldn’t help but notice the incessant accusations of alleged election fraud. And no one focused more intently on the imagined scandals involving ACORN and the New Black Panthers than did Fox.
  • Take Power: Stage massive demonstrations and accuse opponents of voter fraud through radio and TV stations that you control. Does that sound like any Tea Party/Fox News coalition you might have heard about?

Actually, there is a bit of news since yesterday. With regard to “controlling the airwaves,” Beck was a bit more specific. He re-addressed what he portrayed as a vast network of television and radio outlets that Soros controlled and identified them as Media Matters, Tea Party Tracker, and ThinkProgress. Of course, those are all Internet sites. Beck didn’t name a single radio or TV station that answered to Soros. Apparently Beck doesn’t know the difference between airwaves and information superhighways.

Another notable regurgitation by Beck was his assertion that everything he says must be true or Rupert Murdoch would throw him off the air. He made this claim last April saying…

“Who owns this network? Rupert Murdoch. Do you know how much money Rupert Murdoch is … you know he’s got all these things going on. Do you think he’s going to let a guy at five o’clock say a bunch of stuff, put this together, it’s completely wrong, and stay on the network? Do you think he became a billionaire because he’s stupid? No, so that’s not it. Because Fox couldn’t allow me to say things that were wrong.”

In response to that I noted that Murdoch must agree with Beck on the plethora of ludicrous accusations that Beck has made over the years, like…

  • President Obama is a racist with a deep-seated hatred for white people.
  • It is the eve of destruction in America.
  • The climate cult is teaching your children that the earth is God.
  • The current administration is full of Nazis, socialists, communists, Marxists, and Maoists.
  • Katrina victims are scumbags.
  • Progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution.
  • The founding of the United States, and the Constitution, were divinely inspired.
  • If your church preaches social justice you must run from it as fast as you can.
  • If we don’t face the truth right now, we’ll be dead in five years; this country can’t survive.
  • The passage of the health care bill marks the end of prosperity in America forever.
  • There are traitors in this government who are deliberately trying to destroy it.
  • The only hope left for America is for Osama Bin Laden to attack again.

Since beck has dragged Murdoch into this, it is now incumbent on Murdoch to refute Beck’s assertion that Murdoch agrees with all these statements. Barring that, Murdoch is just as responsible for them as Beck. Today on his radio show Beck again recruited Murdoch as his corroboration for the insanity he spews. This time in a sort of open letter to George Soros:

“Mr. Soros, do you actually expect America to believe that I could get on the radio and television and tell wholly fabricated lies about the most powerful man on planet earth and you would not crush me overnight? You would not have your attorneys, you would not have everything at your disposal going after Rupert Murdoch and Fox News. Of course you would. You would do it a legal way. If I were making up lies about you, I couldn’t stay on the air. First of all, you wouldn’t have to pressure. Rupert Murdoch wouldn’t put me on the air. He would fire me.”

So once again, Beck asserts that Murdoch is in complete agreement with him by virtue of the fact that he still has a show. But Beck’s logic is a bit faulty (now there’s an understatement). He believes that Soros could crush him at will if he were fabricating lies. But couldn’t Soros also crush him at will if he were telling a truth that Soros wanted suppressed? In fact, wouldn’t Soros have even more incentive to crush him if the allegations were true? After all, Soros is the most powerful man in America according to Beck.

One other relatively new item is that Beck is now asserting that Soros has “threatened” him by giving him a gift. Was it a horses head in his bed? Was it a fish wrapped in newspaper? Nope. The ominous present was a DVD of the old movie “A Face in the Crowd” starring Andy Griffith. In the film Griffith played a Beck-like demagogue who rose from an alcoholic drifter to become a national broadcast star. Gee, what do you suppose the connection is? Somehow Beck regards this as a threat, but he neglects to explain what’s so threatening about it. Does he think that Soros is hinting that he’s going to sign Beck up for Netflix without permission?

I suppose I’ll leave it at that and hope that Beck provides a little more original content on tomorrow’s program. I can’t be expected to carry this debate all by myself.

Shocking Glenn Beck Expose: The Puppet Master. It’s Not Who You Think

Posted by on November 10, 2010 at 3:53 am. 16 Comments :

On today’s episode of the Glenn Beck program on Fox News, Beck made good on his promise to reveal the “Puppet Master” behind every diabolical scheme orchestrated by progressives and socialists for the past century. It was a shocking expose that is certain rattle the halls of power and stir even the embers of Hades.

This was no ordinary program. Yesterday Beck alerted his radio audience that if they didn’t watch, some dreadful fate might befall Beck (Now that’s marketing!). It was an alert that began with a warning to Beck’s nemesis, George Soros:

Beck: George, just a message for you. Something that…we’re prepared in every possible way, sir. But we are doing what we feel we have to do. I ask you…because we are going out on a limb here…We are kind of a canary in a coal mine. If people don’t watch, or whatever, it puts us, quite honestly it puts us in danger. You know it’s kind of like…I kind of look at you as our attorney. If something happens, could you just get this information out for us?

Got that? If Soros or his goons should fit Beck for cement galoshes, it’s up to you, his loyal viewers, to avenge him. It’s somewhat curious that Beck is the one fearful of being harmed when just a few weeks ago it was one of Beck’s goons that was captured after a gunfight with police while he was on his way to kill people at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU.

Today’s program was classic Beck. He led off early with that old standard of Van Jones being a “communist revolutionary,” and then sweetened it with a new twist that Jones is “a guy who pines for the days of Stalin.” Of course, none of that is true, but it makes a good soap opera plot.

Then Beck gracefully pivoted to his patented “mug and shake.” This is where he presents a usually out of context quote like this:

Beck: George Soros, in the aftermath of 9/11 talked about police actions as an alternative to war. Now did anybody pick up on that? This is what he said: “War is a false and misleading metaphor in the context of combating terrorism. Crimes require police work not military action.”

After which Beck mugs for the camera and shakes his head disapprovingly. It’s his non-verbal way of letting his viewers know what they’re supposed to feel. In this instance they are being directed to feel appalled at whatever was just presented, even though there was nothing remotely wrong with it. The quote from Soros just happens to reflect the views of most terrorism experts, but that shouldn’t stop Beck’s disciples from being led to believe that there was something sinister in it.

We also got to see Beck build a case against 501(c)(3) charitable organizations as if there was some inherent evil in them. He gave as examples a few of his perennial foes like MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress. But for some reason he declined to mention the conservative/Tea Party groups Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, Citizens United, or the Media Research Center.

Most of this very special episode of Beck was brought to you by a four year old book that has been widely debunked: The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. The first clue that this book, published in 2006, is less than credible is right there in the title. If this all-powerful cabal of Soros and Clinton and the sixties radicals had seized control of the Democratic Party, than how did Barack Obama beat Clinton for the presidential nomination just two years later? That doesn’t seem like a particularly menacing cabal.

But, as it turns out, the real revelation of this expose had nothing to do with any of the above. It was a all a big buildup to reveal the man that Beck regards as the “Puppet Master” pulling the strings of power for the One World Government that is hiding in the shadows. And who is that man? Well, let’s follow Beck’s clues.

The Formula:

  • Form a shadow government: Beck begins by pointing fingers at the Center for American Progress, but that’s a dodge because the real target could just as likely be the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute.
  • Control the airwaves: In a bit of misdirection, Beck cites NPR and Free Press, however they are hardly major players in the media. The top rated cable news channel is Fox News. Most of the rest of the media is owned by giant, multinational corporations run by conservatives. And radio is dominated by names like Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh.
  • Destabilize the state: Here Beck suggests that the Puppet Master would cause a political or economic crisis. Perhaps like the one that sent the country into a tailspin in late 2008?
  • Provoke an election crisis: Anyone who watched Fox News in the days leading up to the election couldn’t help but notice the incessant accusations of alleged election fraud. And no one focused more intently on the imagined scandals involving ACORN and the New Black Panthers than did Fox.
  • Take Power: Stage massive demonstrations and accuse opponents of voter fraud through radio and TV stations that you control. Does that sound like any Tea Party/Fox News coalition you might have heard about?

The conclusion could not be more clear. The Puppet Master’s identity can only be one man. It is a man that wields enormous power around the world. It is a man with ties to media and government and big business. It is a man without a country. It is a man whom Beck has every right to fear. It is without doubt the most loathsome creature to stalk God’s green earth in decades. It is…..


That’s right. Rupert Murdoch. Who else? All the pieces fit. And no wonder Beck is afraid. He could hardly come right out and accuse his boss of these terrible crimes. That’s why he had to be so cryptic, and why he still can’t bring himself to utter the name aloud. It’s why Beck had to construct a gauntlet of phony attacks on George Soros (which have been completely debunked), who was serving as the innocent decoy in this scheme.

But now the truth is out and we must all be vigilant, for Murdoch is probably even more dangerous when threatened or wounded. So pray for Beck. His courage in going up against someone so heinous when his very livelihood is on the line is inspiring and far too rare. God bless you Patriot Beck, and good luck. You’re going to need it.

This Just In: Further evidence of the Murdoch/Puppet Master connection. Beck included in his rant against Soros the fact that Soros attended what Beck called the “Fabian Socialist” London School of Economics. What he left unsaid (likely due to fear of reprisal) is the name of another LSE Alum: Sir Keith Murdoch, father of Rupert Murdoch, and apparently another socialist.

Top Ten Reasons A Democratic Victory Is Worth Fighting For

Posted by on November 1, 2010 at 11:26 am. 2 Comments :

Tomorrow is election day, and if you think there isn’t a lot at stake your Lunesta dosage is too high.

The media is falling all over itself predicting a Republican landslide, but this campaign is far from over. Polling for midterm elections is difficult under the best of circumstances, but with the wild fluctuations caused by Tea Partiers, minorities, and young voters who pollsters ignore, anything is possible. The most important thing is to stay strong, vote, and make sure you get everyone you know to vote as well. As much as he might like to believe it, Rupert Murdoch does not decide who wins elections in America. That is, unless Americans allow it. Therefore, if you need a little extra motivation, I give you…..

The Top 10 Reasons A Democratic Victory Is Worth Fighting For:

  1. George Soros will send you a crisp, new $100.00 bill.
  2. Michael Steele will take that call center job in Guam.
  3. Seven year old girls will get their Tea Party back.
  4. The Learning Channel will relaunch Sarah Palin’s Alaska as Sarah Palin’s Jersey Shore.
  5. Christine O’Donnell will turn Karl Rove into a Newt Gingrich.
  6. Fox News advertising will consist entirely of gold coins, Egg Genies, and penis enlargers.
  7. Linda McMahon’s WWE will air a death match between Sharon “Man-up” Angle and Rand “Aqua Buddha” Paul.
  8. Hundreds of media pundits and pollsters will be fired (don’t count on this one).
  9. The war between the GOP and the Tea Party will go nuclear.

And the #1 Reason A Democratic Victory Is Worth Fighting For…

  1. This will happen to Glenn Beck:

And an honorary mention: The country may actually have an opportunity to move forward and avoid the agenda of the GOP Dark Ageists for a couple more years.

GET OUT THE F’ING VOTE!

The Democratic Path To Victory In The House

Posted by on October 29, 2010 at 12:06 pm. 3 Comments :

MurdochMuch of the media is already predicting a GOP takeover of the House of Representatives. They blast sensationalist headlines that declare a coming Apocalypse for Democrats. This view is being presented as if it is a foregone conclusion.

But there are reasons to suspect their confidence. Polling is notoriously dicey for midterm elections. The Tea Party has certainly fired up a segment of the Republican base, but it is doing the same for Democrats. The youth vote is being significantly under-represented in polling (most pollsters don’t even call cellphones). And the most potent force on the left, “Getting Out The Vote,” may turn expectations on their head as unions, African-Americans, Latinos, seniors, and other progressive constituencies mobilize their members.

Robert Creamer has authored an inspiring story to motivate voters and increase participation in GOTV efforts. Below are some choice excerpts and links to ways you can help.

The Democratic Path to Victory in the House
[T]o beat the odds and win, Democrats must be successful at four key tasks over the next five days.

1). Democrats and their allies must be successful at turning out larger than expected numbers of Latino voters. Polls show Latino voters breaking 65% to 70% Democratic, but their turnout in most Mid-terms falls well below both non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black voters.

2). Democrats need to successfully assure that two key issues are on the minds of the voters at the close of the race: Social Security, and outsourcing jobs.

3). In many districts it is especially important that Democrats are successful in emphasizing the strong personal relationship of voters – especially older voters – with their Member of Congress. And they must also be successful at disqualifying the alternative.

4). First and foremost, for Democrats to beat the odds next Tuesday, our get out the vote operations must function flawlessly. Basically, these operations must defy the “likely voter” models that have dictated the gloomy scenario in most polls.

To volunteer, go to OFA.BO/GOTV
To call swing districts: Call.BarackObama.com. That will automatically give you a targeted list of voters in a swing district.
To volunteer with MoveON with a campaign near your home, go here: www.moveon.org/2010
If you want to call from home, go here: pol.moveon.org/2010
If you want to go to a MoveOn campaign event, go here: pol.moveon.org/event/lastchance

Wednesday morning, don’t say to yourself, “wow, we only lost the House by one seat – and only by a few votes – and I could have changed that.”

There is a pathway for Democratic victory, but it requires we hit on all four of these key cylinders. Too much is at stake to allow any stone to remain unturned. Pick up the phone as soon as you finish reading this. We have five days to change history.

Good advice. Creamer lays out details for each of the points above that are important to know and to relay to your friends and family. The value of your participation in GOTV is incalculable. And it increases exponentially for everyone you persuade to join you.

Don’t let the media decide this election. Don’t let Rupert Murdoch and Fox News get away with installing a far-right cadre of some of the most dangerously demented candidates in history. If we prevail the Tea Party will be over. They can call it a day. And that alone would make the effort worthwhile.

Shameless Right-Wing Hypocrisy On Media Funding

Posted by on October 22, 2010 at 2:52 pm. 23 Comments :

There has lately been an excess of rage expressed over a couple of charitable donations by George Soros. Both NPR and Media Matters were beneficiaries of Soros’ generosity. These are both media-related entities that play no direct role in politics.

But the same rightist critics of donations don’t seem to have any problem with Rupert Murdoch giving millions of dollars to overtly political enterprises: the Republican Governor’s Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That money is used to buy ads against Democrats on Fox News, so the money Murdoch donated ends up right back in his pocket. And another big difference in these donations is that Soros was open and honest about announcing his largesse, while Murdoch gave in secret and even remarked that he had anticipated that his donations would remain secret.

A fair observer would have to wonder why the munificence of Soros is problematic but the fact that Right-wingers are just as generous to their ideological allies isn’t worthy of discussion. They will never mention, for instance, that uber-rightist Richard Mellon Scaife has given millions to the conservative Media Research Center (which runs several right-wing operations like NewsBusters). And while Soros remains outside of the organizations to which he contributes, Murdoch has moved inside as a board member of the Associated Press.

The hypocrisy demonstrated by the right is world-class. While the left is taking heat for being totally transparent, the right takes pride in enforcing silence about its clandestine activities. Since they have admitted that they aspire to fund their friends in secret, we have no way of knowing what other donations have been made by folks like Murdoch and his billionaire comrades. Murdoch confessed that he gave the RGA money due to his friendship with John Kasich, a candidate for governor in Ohio and a former employee of Fox News. Karl Rove is presently an employee of Fox News. Is he also receiving financing from Murdoch? We don’t know because they are not required to disclose it and they keep it obsessively private.

What we do know is that Fox News has a record of shilling for the right. Their daytime anchor Jon Scott (who, ironically, is also the host of their Fox News Watch) once read an RNC document on the air as if it were his own research. He even displayed a graphic on screen that contained the same typo that was in the original RNC memo.

We also know that Fox News relies heavily on the work of the Media Research Center and NewsBusters. We know this because their top news anchor at the time, Brit Hume, said so in public:

Hume: I want to say a word, however, of thanks to Brent and the team at the Media Research Center […] 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.

The left has nothing to compare with the media domination of the right. Only the right has their own cable news network. They rule talk radio in part because of conservative broadcasters who deliberately shut out liberal programming. Independent studies show that even the supposedly liberal segments of the press actually lean more to the right in their editorial positions, their guests and sources, and their staffing.

So it seems curious that all of sudden we have right-wingers going bonkers over a couple of donations that will certainly help those organizations, but will have little impact on the broader media landscape. It just proves that the right is focused on maintaining their competitive advantage, that they know the value of “working the refs,” and that they have no shame when it comes to acting out their hypocrisy.

Rupert Murdoch Epitomizes Hidebound Culture

Posted by on October 8, 2010 at 1:23 pm. 1 Comments :

Dateline: Wall Street Journal, October 8,2010.
If Schools Were Like ‘American Idol’ . . .
BY RUPERT MURDOCH

Over the past few years, I have often complained about a hidebound culture that prevents many newspapers from responding to the challenges of new technology. There is, however, another hidebound American institution that is also finding it difficult to respond to new challenges: our big-city schools.

Is that so? Rupert Murdoch’s op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal is apparently his prescription for improving America’s ailing schools. Unfortunately, he has locked up his own opinion behind a paywall that prevents anyone who has not subscribed to his service from reading it. All you get is two paragraphs that contribute nothing to the public discourse on education.

The irony is that while he is complaining about a hidebound culture, he is simultaneously demonstrating it. The concept of erecting paywalls to secure content online is firmly rooted in the past. Modern media theory recognizes that certain types of information cannot be corralled and apportioned for fees. That is particularly true for news which no entity can own.

What Murdoch has succeeded in proving here is that his paywall not only fails to produce revenue, it suppresses the information he intends to distribute. And he ties it to the success of his own American Idol, a television program that, unlike his newspapers, can be received entirely free of charge. The result of this illogic is that he is making himself less prosperous and less influential at the same time. And he is doing nothing to help our educational system or the young people who rely upon it. Nice work, Rupert.

Is Rupert Murdoch Funding Al Qaeda?

Posted by on October 4, 2010 at 12:01 pm. 7 Comments :

A couple of recent revelations regarding the charitable proclivities of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are now raising chilling questions for which there has been no answer to date.

It was widely reported a few weeks ago that News Corp made a $1 million donation to the Republican Governor’s Association. Reaction to that report was swift and damning. The notion that News Corp, parent company of Fox News, is bankrolling the campaigns of people they are also purporting to cover in their newspapers and on their TV networks, is appalling and unprecedented. To make matters worse, Fox continues to give positively biased coverage to GOP candidates without disclosing their contributions.

Last week another story emerged that revealed another $1 million contribution by News Corp, this time to the pro-GOP US Chamber of Commerce. This has the same potential for conflict of interest as the gift to the GOP governors and, again, Fox puts a muzzle on its reporters to suppress the story.

Now Ben Smith at Politico reports what may be the worst part of this scandal of all. Responding to a query as to why News Corp would make these donations that overtly contradict their claims to fairness and balance, and further damage their already mutilated journalistic credibility, Smith reports that…

“A person close to News Corp. told me this week the company didn’t realize its $1 million to the RGA would become public. And the $1 million to Chamber of Commerce was supposed to be secret as well.”

That explains a lot. If Murdoch never believed that these donations would become public he would have no reason to be concerned about the blowback. But what is even more troubling is this: If Murdoch made these donations with the expectation that they would be kept secret, what other donations might he have made whose secrecy has actually been preserved?

Could Murdoch have contributed to the Tea Party Express or other AstroTurfers like FreedomWorks? Could he be bankrolling the operations of Sarah Palin’s PAC or Glenn Beck’s Holy Rollover Revue? Since the Citizen’s United decision by the Supreme Court earlier this year, the ability of corporations to sink unlimited resources into politics has been greatly enhanced. It created an open door for multinational corporations to influence American elections

Murdoch’s business connections have deep roots in many financial and political matters around the world. He is closely tied with Saudi oil and media barons and billionaires like Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. Alwaleed is a backer of the Park51 project to build a Muslim community center a couple of blocks from ground zero in Lower Manhattan.

What other Muslim initiatives might Murdoch be connected to? Could he have an interest in the affairs of Al Qaeda? There is presently reporting on Fox News about the escalated terror alerts in Europe. Murdoch could be seen as being a beneficiary of this because it could reflect badly on President Obama’s national security policies. And Murdoch is always happy to see this President in decline. What contributions might he have made to bring about this or any other event that accrues to his benefit?

Seriously, the problem here is that we have no way of knowing what sort of enterprises Murdoch (or any other corporate baron) is financing. If we only find out by accident, there is a very real prospect that there are far worse things that have not yet been revealed. And the new legal interpretations make it harder, if not impossible, to acquire this information.

Is Rupert Murdoch funding Al Qaeda. Probably not. But that’s not the point. Who is he funding (besides the GOP governors and the Chamber of Commerce) that is still being kept secret from us? His scope of influence, due to his position and wealth, makes him a significant figure on the political landscape. The fact that he runs an international media empire makes his political contributions relevant to his readers and viewers. And the fact that he is making donations that he presumed would be secret suggests that he may have made others that still are.

Murdoch needs to either come clean about his political largesse or stop making contributions altogether. He cannot operate a media enterprise that he asserts is unbiased without greater transparency, especially in light of what has become known already. And the rest of the media must stop treating Fox News and other News Corp operations as if they were legitimate journalists. Fox News is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Their partisan reporting has made that more than clear, and their financial activities prove it again and again.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Glenn Beck?

Posted by on September 15, 2010 at 12:34 pm. 11 Comments :

Glenn Beck has managed to elevate himself to a unique position in American demagoguery. He descends from a genetic family that includes Father Charles Coughlin, Morton Downey Jr., and Rev. Jim Jones, with a little of Tammy Faye Bakker’s trademarked tearyness thrown in. He has broadened his reach by virtue of his radio and television shows, his book publishing, and his Internet sites. He aims to rival the omnipotence of the Messiah he thinks he is becoming.

Unfortunately, Beck has also assumed a position that Mark Twain once ascribed to the weather: Everyone talks about Beck, but nobody does anything about him.

The problem is that there aren’t many avenues of attack available for Beck’s opponents. He cannot be exiled from the Internet. His books will be feverishly hoarded by his devotees. Radio is already hopelessly enshrouded in Dark Ages conservatism. And on television, the most sensitive medium to market forces, Beck has found a home where he is welcome despite a successful advertiser embargo.

It’s television that poses the greatest challenge. Beck’s presence has taken root at Fox News. His invulnerability to lack of revenue, and even ratings declines, is a revealing example of the problem faced by his critics as well as his bosses at Fox and/or News Corp. Not that Fox is interested in jettisoning their deluded prophet. But moving up the ladder there may be evidence that the patience of some News Corp honchos could be wearing thin. Members of Rupert Murdoch’s family, who will inherit his media empire, have not been shy about their distaste for the wild-eyed antics of Beck and his ilk. Murdoch’s son-in-law publicly said that he was ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes.

However, there is a dilemma that any Beck foe would encounter within or without Murdochia. And that is the cult-like devotion of Beck’s disciples. If Fox made an attempt to cancel his program, or even reschedule it to a less attractive time slot, the blow back from the BeckPods would be hurricane force. It wouldn’t make any difference if there was a legitimate reason for the move related to revenue or ratings. Beck’s Brigades would assert that it was censorship, oppression, tyranny. They would, of course, blame it on President Obama and his coterie of czars. And they would make Fox pay the consequences for caving in. This puts Fox at Beck’s mercy. The consequences of firing him, even with justification, would be too severe.

Consequently, the only way to liberate us from the cesspool of maniacal scare-mongering that is Glenn Beck, is for him to deliver the fuel for his own downfall. Only if he were to bitterly betray his carefully constructed persona would his disciples accept a rejection of him by his media masters. That means some sort of financial impropriety, inexcusable hypocrisy, or best of all, a sex scandal. Seeing as how the first two have occurred with some regularity, that leaves only the third option as plausible.

A couple of weeks ago a writer at the Huffington Post published an article wherein he offered $100,000 to anyone who could produce a sex tape of Beck (who would have the intestinal fortitude to watch?) or provide other evidence of misbehavior. The article was quickly deemed to be inappropriate and was removed from the site for violating its standards.

But when it comes to inappropriate publishing, The Globe Magazine has no such standards to constrain it.


The current cover features a teaser for an article that reveals the “Glenn Beck Sex Tape Scandal and the Mystery Woman Behind It.” [Spoiler Alert: The Mystery Woman is Michelle Obama.] The Globe’s “source” alleges some sort of plot by the First Lady to defend the President by getting rid of his chief critic. Leave it to the Globe to invent a phony sex tape myth that makes Beck the victim of a panicky White House.

While the Huffington Post and the Globe have both ventured into the inane, they have also recognized the most likely path to putting Beck on the fast track to has-been obscurity. Finding the ethical chink in Beck’s celestial armor is the only way to cast him off without arousing the ire of his congregation.

Let’s face it, Beck is no saint. There is almost certainly a closet in his estate(s) that is jam-packed with skeletons. And setting them loose would be a great service to America, to democracy, and to mankind. I’m not going to announce a bounty on Beck’s head as HuffPo did. I’m merely pointing out that the bar to removing Beck from the mediasphere is pretty high, even for the folks at News Corp. And I’m predicting that, if Beck does get canned (as he deserves), it will be because of some revelation that is too embarrassing to overcome, not because of a rational decision related to business or a renewed interest in honesty and journalistic ethics.

I can’t wait.

Rupert Murdoch’s Paywall Going Bust

Posted by on September 2, 2010 at 11:31 am. 2 Comments :

In the latest in a long line of pinhead moves by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the plan to secure the content of their newspaper web sites behind paywalls is failing miserably. A report in The Independent reveals that…

“Faced with a collapse in traffic to thetimes.co.uk, some advertisers have simply abandoned the site.” and that “traffic to The Times site has fallen by 90 per cent since the introduction of charges.”

This was entirely predictable. When there is an abundance of news available online, why would anyone pay to receive information that is not distinguishable from the free information available elsewhere? Especially when consumers are already “paying” as a result of their presence being sold to advertisers. That’s traditionally how media produces revenue.

In addition to the traffic almost disappearing from the The Times site, reporters are anxious about having lost their voice and their reach into the community. What journalist would want to see their readership decline by 90%? What’s more, publicists are avoiding The Times because they know that their stories will not be seen by very many people.

It was reported last month that The Times lost 1.2 Million online readers since the paywall was erected. And that’s not all:

According to ComScore, the combined number of unique visitors to the two new sites has fallen to 1.61 million in July, from 2.22 million in June, and 2.79 million in May. […] The average number of minutes each user spent on the site was 7.6 in May, 5.8 in June and 4 in July. […] Page views have dropped from 29 million in May to 20 million in June and 9 million in July.

Some analysts insist that this is a long-term initiative. Maybe so. But by the time they might expect paywalls to pay off, the advertising market for online media will have matured and become profitable. However, anyone who follows Murdoch now into the paywall panic room will lose out in the ad market because they won’t have enough traffic to produce revenue.

Congratulations, Rupert.

Who Is Funding The NYC Mosque? Fox News!

Posted by on August 22, 2010 at 4:26 pm. 14 Comments :

Last week I reported that News Corp, the parent of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and more, made a donation of $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. It’s bad enough that a major media company is bankrolling GOP campaigns and still pretending to be fair and balanced when they report on those campaigns, but things just got even crazier.

For weeks there has been a raging battle over the proposed construction of an Islamic community and prayer center a couple of blocks away from the site of the former World Trade Center. One of the most frequently repeated criticisms by opponents of the Park51 project is that they wanted to know where the money was coming from. In the absence of that information they alleged, without proof, that the center was being funded by terrorists or groups sympathetic to terrorists.

Mosque at Ground ZeroWell now we know precisely where some that funding came from. It has now been revealed that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, News Corp’s largest shareholder outside of the Murdoch family, has donated over $300,000 to organizations run by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the principal planner of Park51. One of those organizations was the Park51 project itself.

So now that we know that a major shareholder of News Corp is providing funding to Imam Rauf to build the center, will the critics be satisfied and drop their complaints? Will they expand their attacks to include News Corp and Rupert Murdoch? Will they even hear about it on their favorite cable news network, Fox News (who never bothered to report on the million dollar gift to the GOP)?

If this center is such an affront to the victims and survivors of 9/11, then isn’t News Corp and Fox News partly responsible for it? I wouldn’t be too surprised if it was all part of a plot to generate a controversy that would advantage them politically as well as boost their ratings.

Furthermore, if the insult that critics allege is due to the mosque being “near” the site where thousands of Americans were killed, then shouldn’t they also oppose any mosques being built in Iraq? More Americans were killed there than at the WTC on 9/11. Doesn’t that make Iraq “hallowed ground” as well?

I really can’t fathom why a building that is nothing more than an Islamic YMCA is causing such a ruckus. I think it is far more insulting to exploit 9/11, and to use the painful images from that day in crass political advertising. That’s exactly what Republican Roy Blunt has done here, in an ad that takes his opponent, Robin Carnahan, to task for not opposing the center. The ad features a video of the smoking WTC ruin with a voiceover of Carnahan saying…

“I’m not gonna try to tell folks in New York what to do, and I don’t want them trying to tell us in Missouri what to do. So in the end it’s gonna have to be their decision. But, you know, I think this a time when we ought to be trying to get people of all faiths to come together, not divide them.”

If I didn’t know better I would think that’s an ad for Carnahan. What’s wrong with that statement? It’s an affirmation of Missourians interests and a call for peace and brotherhood. Apparently Blunt is against those things.

Another exploitative and disturbing ad was from New York Republican Rick Lazio. In fact he has two of them here and here. Both ads urge his opponent, Andrew Cuomo, to initiate an investigation into the Park51 project. Lazio is one of those who is seeking to ascertain the funding sources. Of course now we know that all he needs to do is ask his hosts the next time he appears on Fox News.

This Just In: Not only is Alwaleed, the News Corp shareholder, a financial backer of Imam Rauf, but Rupert Murdoch’s book division, HarperCollins, is the publisher of Rauf’s book, What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right With America. When will the right-wingers start to hold Murdoch & Co. accountable?