Rupert Murdoch

Fox News Must Hate Rupert Murdoch

Posted by on June 25, 2010 at 11:41 am. 7 Comments :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WSJ: The Alien In The White House

Posted by on June 9, 2010 at 12:37 pm. 6 Comments :

The right-wing media long ago cemented its status as a shrill, extremist platform for failed conservative positions, pundits, and politicians. Often it melded all three into its version of super-troopers, peddling partisan rhetoric and propaganda. Fox News, not surprisingly, is the best example of this with their employment of media-politico crossovers like Sarah Palin and Karl Rove.

However, to the extent that some of the more sober purveyors of news sought to maintain an image of seriousness and thoughtful analysis, even that boundary has been breached.

When Rupert Murdoch purchased the Wall Street Journal it was a respected news organization that, at least outwardly, aspired to adhere to established journalistic principles. Murdoch insisted that he was committed to preserving that heritage and that he would not impose his views on the paper’s editorial process. But this morning any aspiration toward ethical journalism was abandoned and replaced with an embrace of the most deranged lunacy straight off of the supermarket tabloid rack.

Dorothy Rabinowitz composed a screed for the Journal that is so devoid of rationality it makes an argument for her family to invoke conservatorship and have her confined to an institution for her own protection. It begins with the title The Alien In The White House. Despite a disclaimer at the end of the fourth paragraph that it has “nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe,” Rabinowitz has to know that the imagery in her words plants the very message she claims not to be espousing. The demented fringe will devour it with relish. She wants her readers to conjure up thoughts of a foreign, illegitimate, usurper to power.

Fox Nation Obama AlienIn support of this promotion of birtherism, Murdoch’s web site, Fox Nation, republished Rabinowitz’s column with a graphic exclamation point. The visual cues employed here escalate the routine insanity of those who believe that Obama was born in Kenya, to an even more absurd insinuation that he is not even from this planet. At this rate the Weekly World News may sue Murdoch for infringing on their fringiness.

But even the message to which Rabinowitz is laying claim distastefully casts President Obama as something other than a patriotic public servant. In fact, she paints him as borderline treasonous. In her view the President aligns himself with foreigners and pursues their interests and not those of Americans.

“A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class.”

Never mind the fact that it was a majority of Americans, not foreigners, who elected him. Rabinowitz imagines that the country has a perception of the President as having a “distant relation to the country.” However, the truth is that she is the one who feels a distance from the mainstream citizens who rejected the policies of her ideological class; the policies that drove the nation into a financial ditch and embroiled it in two costly wars.

Ironically, the first example Rabinowitz offers of Obama’s other-worldliness is that, upon moving into the White House, he failed to find a place for a bust of Winston Churchill. She is literally arguing that by removing the bust of a foreigner Obama is aligning himself with foreigners. That is the level of cognitive disconnect the right suffers from in general. And, of course, had he placed Churchill’s bust on the mantle in the East Room, he would have been criticized for glorifying a foreigner and harassed about why an American didn’t get that spot of honor on the mantle.

It is to be expected that broadsheets like the Weekly World News publish stories about presidents meeting with Venutians, but it represents a devastating collapse of integrity to see the Wall Street Journal treading that territory. And the fact that this nonsense is plastered across multiple Murdoch properties proves that it is his initiative. He cannot pretend to be removed from the hysterical madness that has permeated his enterprise. He is responsible for Rabinowitz’s incoherent daftness, just as he is responsible for Glenn Beck’s fascist evangelism, and Bill O’Reilly’s arrogant racism, and the rest of the crackpot conspiratorialists at Fox.

If Rupert Murdoch ever hoped that by acquiring the Journal he would rehabilitate his reputation, he has fouled that up entirely. Rather than having the Journal’s respected history rub off on him and polish his legacy, he has rubbed off on the Journal and stained it forever. Nice work, Rupe.

ADDENDUM: With regard to the bust of Churchill, Rabinowitz was even more off base than I thought. First of all, Churchill’s bust was on loan from the British embassy and was returned before Obama was inaugurated, so he had nothing to do with it not being displayed. What’s more, Obama put a bust of Martin Luther King in the place where Churchill’s had been. And this is what Rabinowitz is asserting is somehow un-American?

Glenn Beck Blames 9/11 On Major Fox News Shareholder

Posted by on June 4, 2010 at 11:21 am. 24 Comments :

Glenn Beck BlackboardI wonder how this one is gonna go over at the next News Corp board meeting.

On his program yesterday, Glenn Beck embarked on another of his famously illogical rants. This one had something to do with the Israeli encounter with activists seeking to break the blockade in the Persian Gulf. Somehow Beck segued into a discussion of 9/11 and an offer made by a Saudi prince to help with restoration efforts.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal approached New York’s then-mayor Rudy Giuliani and offered $10 million to help the city recover. Giuliani, in a fit of intolerance, refused the money. In the retelling of these events, Beck hypothesized that the money was tainted and that the Saudi donor was aligned with the terrorists who flew the planes into the World Trade Center towers:

“Do you remember what happened right after 9/11 with Rudy Giuliani? Do you remember Saudi Arabia came and said, we want to help. This guy [pointing at Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud] came over and said ‘I want to give you a $10 million dollar check.’ Rudy Giuliani said, ‘you see that over there? I don’t think we want your help. You already sent us help. And you flew that help into … the trade centers.‘ The same prince later blamed the U.S. policy for the attacks. Giuliani said, take your check, we don’t want your money.”

I’m not sure how any of that related to the incident in the Persian Gulf. Beck is notorious for constructing incoherent scenarios that reflect nothing more than his hallucinatory imagination. But the real problem here is that the Saudi Prince who Beck explicitly accused of being part of the Al Qaeda gang who attacked Manhattan on 9/11, is actually the largest shareholder of Fox News’ parent, News Corp, other than Rupert Murdoch and members of his family. That makes him Beck’s boss. Prince Alwaleed is also a close friend of Murdoch and former President Bush.

Set aside for the moment that Alwaleed is an international financier who has never been implicated in terrorism or affiliated with terrorists. Thus, Beck’s accusation is the most vile sort of slander. It’s typical of Beck’s hypocrisy that he would fiercely reject the notion of taking any money from this person that he regards as a terrorist, yet Beck is taking money from him every day as an employee of the company that Alwaleed owns a significant portion of. It’s also typical that Beck’s appreciation for facts is so limited as to not even acknowledge this relationship.

So what consequences will there be for Beck calling Alwaleed a terrorist? Beck has survived calling President Obama a racist. He has survived the loss of millions of dollars due to an advertiser boycott. He has survived equating social justice to Marxism and telling his viewers to leave their churches if they practice it. He has survived hosting (and agreeing with) Michael Scheuer, who said that the only hope for America is for Bin Laden to attack us again with weapons of mass destruction. Can Beck survive calling the owner of his network a terrorist?

Murdoch and his henchman, Fox CEO Roger Ailes, are in a difficult position. If they do nothing they risk Alwaleed punishing them by dumping his stock. That would likely result in a plunging value for News Corp shares. If they fire Beck they could unleash a backlash from the Beck Confederacy of Dunces that could result in a massive exodus of their core viewers. Even more troublesome is the potential for violent responses from the aggrieved BeckPods.

If I were forced to make a prediction, I would lean toward everyone doing nothing. The past tells us that Fox News is disinclined to ever acknowledge flaws or wrongdoing. And the major players are all business people who may regard their financial prospects as their highest priority – even Alwaleed. Beck may get a stern talking to, and he may have to promise to be more careful in the future, but I think it is unlikely that he would be terminated over this if he wasn’t terminated over advocating more terrorist attacks on our country.

Perhaps the effect of Beck’s cumulative transgressions may lead to a more severe response, but there’s been no evidence of that in the past. It’s possible that Murdoch may be itching to ditch Beck. He has been attempting to polish his legacy as a serious newspaperman in his golden years. But he could easily be dissuaded from taking action by Ailes and by his fear of the Becklash.

If I’m wrong, and Beck is set adrift, it would be to the credit of News Corp’s management. Although why they didn’t act sooner will still remain a blot on their managerial record. But if I’m right, it would just further affirm Fox’s status as wholly unethical, utterly unprofessional, thoroughly dishonest, and blatantly self-serving. It would reinforce their position that disseminating propaganda is more important than respect for the truth or responsible journalism. Now, which side of that equation do you think Fox would come out on?

Glenn Beck Thanks God For Fox News

Posted by on May 27, 2010 at 8:00 pm. 4 Comments :

In the past year Glenn Beck has lost over a hundred advertisers. In the last four months he has lost about a third of his viewers. He is being boycotted by African Americans for calling President Obama a racist, Christians for calling social justice Marxism, and union members for incessantly insulting workers who seek to organize in order to defend themselves from the abuses of industrial barons.

As his show becomes less profitable, and reaches fewer viewers, Beck must surely be worrying about how committed his bosses are to keeping him on the air. After all, what motivation would there be to do so if he were bringing in neither cash nor ratings?

Beck’s response to these circumstances has thus far has been to dial the crazy up another couple of degrees. His ravings have become less tethered to reality than ever, and his paranoid layering of conspiracies aimed at him by innumerable covert enemies has escalated to Apocalyptic proportions.

He is palpably afraid, but not of progressives or Muslims or community organizers under the bed. He is afraid that his empire is at risk of collapsing on top of him. And so he has taken the next illogical step in his descent by clutching desperately to his sugardaddies at Fox.

On his radio program today he winced at the thought of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, or News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch, getting hit by a newspaper truck. He imagined that with them gone Fox News would would be a “scary” place. And then he commenced his holy benediction:

“Those two hold off the outside world. The beating that those guys take, the pressure that those guys are under, not just from me but almost every voice in Fox, is incredible. […] Fall to your knees and thank God for Fox News. Pray for Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. Pray for them. Pray for strength and spine, and pray that everybody involved has chicken salad for lunch so it doesn’t clog anybody’s arteries. Keep them going.”

This outbreak of syncophantism has but one purpose for Beck: to plant a slobbering wet kiss on the mugs of the two people who hold his fate in their greedy hands. Beck knows that he is dead weight. After becoming anathema to advertisers, his saving grace was that he could deliver viewers to his leadout and jumpstart the primetime schedule. But now he is somewhat less than reliable in that role.

So what else is left for Beck? He is isolating himself from his colleagues who are often embarrassed by him. Former Fox contributor Jane Hall cited Beck as one of the reasons she left the network. Former Fox News anchor Eric Burns expressed gratitude that he doesn’t “have to face the ethical problem of sharing an employer with Glenn Beck.” He has also lost much of what remains of the sane conservative community. Right-wing blogger Charlses Johnson castigated Beck as “an alcoholic, weeping, ranting, creationist talk show host.” Respected conservatives David Brooks and David Frum have both been veering from the ideological excesses of Beck, with Frum lamenting the “reckless defamation” practiced by Beck.

For many of these conservative reprobates, Beck and Fox News have strayed so far into loony territory that they are harmful to the cause of conservatism. I composed a detailed analysis on that very subject almost a year ago: Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party. The question is, will Ailes and Murdoch come this realization, or will they succumb to Beck’s worshipful flattery?

Crime Inc: Glenn Beck’s Corrupt Advertisers

Posted by on May 20, 2010 at 3:08 pm. 14 Comments :

Glenn Beck BlackboardThe past couple of weeks Glenn Beck has been raving about some sort of criminal enterprise that he imagines is being run from the White House. Even with the help of his blackboards he hasn’t ever been able to coherently explain it, but he is convinced that it exists and, as befits his Messianic hallucinations, it is out to get him.

The cabal that Beck has dubbed “Crime Inc” began as an alleged conspiracy contrived by the climate change gang, which includes everyone from Al Gore to General Electric to the United Nations. Lately the conspirators grew to include your church and any institution that embraces social justice (including Beck’s Mormon church). It’s a global syndicate that seeks to collapse international economies and install a one-world government. I assume it’s being run by the Lizard People (whose leader is Barack Obama) but Beck hasn’t gotten to that part yet.

However, it appears that the real Crime Inc is the assembly of advertisers who sponsor Beck’s show (the ones who haven’t yet fled in disgust). As it turns out, many of them are running less than reputable operations that have run afoul of the law. For instance…

Goldline International
This peddler of over-priced gold products is passing itself off as an investment advisor. They advertise prominently on right-wing radio and TV programs that spread fear of an economic meltdown, which they contend gold is a hedge against. The only problem is that they charge far more than the actual value of the gold in their products and employ high-pressure sales tactics. In many cases gold would have to increase in value over 200% for you to just break even. Rep. Anthony Weiner is requesting that federal regulators look into whether Goldline’s highly questionable business practices violate the law.

LifeLock
This is an identity security company that is famous for its CEO who parades his Social Security number around on a billboard mounted to a truck. He also includes it in his TV ads. But now the Federal Trade Commission has “accused Lifelock of operating a scam and con operation. The commission announced, along with 35 state attorneys general, that it had levied a fine of $12 million against the company for deceptive business practices and for failing to secure sensitive customer data.” In short, investigators found that LifeLock failed to provide any of the services they promised.

In addition, an investigation by the the Phoenix New Times revealed that LifeLock’s CEO has had his identity breached multiple times. Losses in the thousands were racked up for the company head who so confidently broadcast his ID to the world. The New Times also uncovered some nefarious activities by another company founder that included gambling debts, arrests, and even identity theft.

Tax Masters
Citing nearly 1,000 complaints, the Texas Attorney General filed an enforcement action against TaxMasters, charging them with unlawful conduct and misleading customers. The action asserts that Tax Masters “unlawfully misled customers about their service contract terms, failed to disclose its no-refunds policy, and falsely claimed that the firm’s employees would immediately begin work on a case.” In addition, the AG charged that Tax Masters failed to even provide the services they promised and refused to give refunds, yet pursued debt collection efforts against clients who canceled their contracts.

Free Score
The first thing you need to know about Free Score is that it is not free. Well, except for the score, that is. But the report that provides you with useful information will end up running you $29.95 per month. It’s a classic bait and switch operation that tags unwary customers for thirty bucks a month for a report that can actually be obtained for free at AnnualCreditReport.com. The company employed conservative hack Ben Stein as its spokesman. That relationship cost Stein his column for the New York Times which does not permit its employees to be commercial shills. Free Score is owned by a disreputable firm called Vertrue that has been the target of actions by both the New York Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive business practices.

These are amongst the steadiest remaining advertisers on Beck’s show. And they appear to reflect the same disregard for ethics and honesty that Beck has made his trademark. It’s rather funny that Beck attacks his imaginary crime syndicate when he has such a close relationship with so many actual criminals. And it isn’t just as advertisers. Beck has long personally acted as a spokesman/shill for Goldline. Even when this violated the guidelines of his employer Fox News. You have to wonder how many of Beck’s other advertisers also have legal problems that have yet to surface. This would be another good reason for reputable companies to cease to associate themselves with Beck. Do they really want to be lumped in with the profligate companies listed above?

Beck’s latest hyperventilations feature a foursome who Beck fears are in cahoots with the White House in a plot to destroy him. Jim Wallis is the head of Sojourners, a progressive Christian organization. After Beck ordered his followers to “run as fast as they can” from any church that practiced social justice, Wallis wrote an item that called on Christians to run from Glenn Beck. Van Jones is the former presidential advisor on green jobs who was once affiliated with Color of Change, the group that initiated the advertiser boycott against Beck. Jones left the group two years before the boycott, which was in response to Beck calling the President a racist. Andy Stern is the former head of the union SEIU, which has joined with Color of Change and MoveOn.org to boycott Beck. These three EOGs (enemies of Glenn) have been portrayed by Beck as agents of the President. Never mind that none of them have any association with the White House or any other government office whatsoever. This is classic Beckian conspiracy mongering wherein everything he deems evil is connected to everything else he deems evil.

The fourth horseman of the Beckocalypse is Rep. Anthony Weiner, who just asked federal regulators to look into Goldline. Beck’s response was to launch a web site called WeinerFacts.com, where Beck’s disciples have been tasked with searching for dirt to smear on Weiner while making fun of his name. It’s all very mature.

Since Beck is so concerned about potential criminal activity, I wonder if he will look into the sordid histories of the people and companies that bankroll his show. And for that matter, his boss, Rupert Murdoch, has also been found guilty of improprieties ranging from corporate espionage to hacking into private email and phone systems of celebrities and politicians. Criminal behavior is part and parcel of the way these people do business. When you look at the big picture here, it’s obvious who the real Crime Inc is.

Glenn Beck Calls Rupert Murdoch An Enemy Of The Free Market System

Posted by on May 6, 2010 at 12:54 pm. 3 Comments :

In another of his patented rants, Glenn Beck has taken aim at a new target that you would think might cause some blowback. Beck was merrily castigating Al Gore and Global Warming, as he often does, and tying it to some sort of criminal conspiracy that will eventually topple free enterprise. He never really explains how that will happen, but he does have pictures on a blackboard that have arrows pointing to each other, so there you have it.

On this occasion, however, Beck was stepping on some pretty big feet. In the course of his rambling he had this to say about some of the media complicity with what he believes is an environmental scam:

“Do you ever wonder why there’s green week every other week on NBC? Do you ever wonder why NBC is such a shill for this White House? President Obama, and anybody who falls in line with him, will get more control and more power over business and whatever else they decide to gobble up.”

I wonder if Beck knows that his own network also participates in green week campaigns. They have even displayed specially designed green-tinged logos in tribute to the movement during his own program

What’s more, Beck’s boss Rupert Murdoch might be one of those people who has fallen in line with Obama on this issue. Perhaps he is seeking more power to gobble up stuff. In an interview a few years ago, Murdoch made it quite clear where he stands on Climate Change:

“We want to help solve the climate problem. We’ll squeeze our own energy use down as much as we can. We’ll become carbon neutral for our own emissions within three years, and be entirely transparent throughout the process, publicly reporting our reductions and offsets. But that’s just a start. Our audience’s carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours, so clearly that’s where we can have the most influence.”

Murdoch was adamant about the role his company would play in persuading his viewers to do their part. [He has since launched an energy initiative encompassing the whole corporate enterprise.] He spoke explicitly about how he would incorporate climate science information into his programming, both on the news and entertainment side of his operations. And he was confident that these efforts would be productive.

“I think when people see that 99 percent of scientists agree about the serious extent of global warming, it’s going to become a fact of life.”

Murdoch even said that he would support a mandatory emissions cap (i.e. cap and trade) and that having a pro-environment platform would be a litmus test for his future campaign contributions. These are positions that place Murdoch squarely in the enemy camp so far as Beck is concerned. It makes Murdoch just another big media mogul seeking power and favor from the Obama administration.

Of course, Murdoch’s position may just be a public relations move to cast himself as a concerned citizen. He has also said that having a green corporate program is an effective employee motivator. So we need to take his words with a healthy sprinkling of salt. It is difficult to buy into his rhetoric when almost everyone on Fox News fiercely contends that Global Warming is a hoax.

What makes this even more surreal is that Beck himself could be his own enemy. In an interview earlier this year with USA Today, Beck said that he believes in Global Warming:

“You’d be an idiot not to notice the temperature change,” he says. He also says there’s a legit case that global warming has, at least in part, been caused by mankind. He has tried to do his part by buying a home with a “green” design and using energy saving products.

It’s hard to find a more potent example of disingenuousness and hypocrisy. But if anyone can top it, it will be Beck. I just have to wonder if Murdoch knows that Beck considers him to be the enemy of the free market. And will Murdoch still want to carry this dead weight, who has lost more than a hundred advertisers and a third of his audience, now that he knows what Beck thinks of him? In fact, considering Beck’s collapsing program performance, canceling him would be a recognition of the free market.

Neil Cavuto Romances Rupert Mudoch, Investors Get Screwed

Posted by on May 5, 2010 at 10:13 am. 3 Comments :

The News Corporation released their quarterly earnings yesterday after the market closed. On the surface there was good news as News Corp beat the estimates of analysts. So Rupert Murdoch visited his own studio to be interviewed by his employee, Neil Cavuto.

Cavuto introduced the segment with a bootlicking recitation of the financial powerhouse that is News Corp. It was a gloating exercise that portrayed News Corp as the savior of the economy and even attempted to recruit viewers to some sort of News Corp pep squad, suggesting that they…

“…count yourself maybe a News Corp booster. The parent company of this fine network, 20th Century Fox, HarperCollins, and on and on, reporting much, much, much, better than expected earnings in the latest period that dwarf well past some of the estimates in there.”

The problem is that, in this eleven minute interview (25% of his program), Cavuto and Murdoch glossed over the most important part of the earnings announcement, so far as investors are concerned – the outlook going forward. As it turns out, News Corp actually issued a warning that they would fail to meet earnings expectations in the next quarter. This information was divulged in the conference call with analysts, but Fox News viewers wouldn’t hear it. Consequently, if you were relying Fox for accurate reporting on the News Corp earnings, you would have lost a pile of money this morning as their stock plummeted six percent.

Watching this spectacle of Cavuto and Murdoch grinning and lying to viewers about the prospects for News Corp’s stock you can’t help but wonder if they crossed a line into deliberately misleading shareholders. Why wouldn’t they? Misleading their viewers is their core competency. If it isn’t weapons of mass destruction or death panels, it’s their stock performance. And when Cavuto got around to asking Murdoch what was driving the company’s unparalleled “success,” Murdoch detoured entirely away from economics to his political obsession:

“Well, as far as Fox News goes it’s very simple. It’s very powerful, it’s very good, and it’s very balanced. And everybody else, every newspaper other than ours, it may be an over-generalization, but by far the most newspapers, and certainly the other television networks, are sort of all on one side, the liberal side of anything. I think the population of this country is pretty worried about its direction and, you know, they turn to Fox News.”

See that? News Corp is successful because of the liberal media. Not because they gouged cable operators for higher subscriber fees and favorable channel placement. Not because of the one-time phenomenon of a little movie called Avatar. Not because of the monopolistic domination they enforce in media markets around the world. But I will agree with Murdoch on his last point, that the population of this country is pretty worried. However, that isn’t why they turn to Fox News, it’s BECAUSE they turned to Fox News. Anyone who watches Fox, and is foolish enough to believe what the see, is a prime candidate for an anxiety attack or an aneurysm.

It is also interesting that Murdoch conducted his interview with Cavuto on the Fox News Channel. Cavuto is also the anchor and Senior VP for Murdoch’s struggling Fox Business Network. But when Murdoch decided to make a television appearance to discuss his company’s earnings, he chose not to visit his own financial news network. Cavuto was reduced to playing the FNC tape on his FBN show. Does that say something about Murdoch’s commitment to FBN?

The Things Rupert Murdoch Believes (Courtesy Of Glenn Beck)

Posted by on April 30, 2010 at 12:51 pm. 6 Comments :

The Mad BeckOn yesterday’s episode of Glenn Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue, Beck wandered through his usual fairy wonderland of conspiracies against America and himself. He introduced his latest panic alert that he portrayed as a mobster-like scheme to take over the world somehow with carbon emissions trading. It’s a plot so insidious and covert that Beck never actually explained how it worked. He just spent an hour moving around pictures of people he doesn’t like on his blackboard and drawing arrows to the words Crime, Inc.

In the course of this sermon, Beck made an earth shattering admission saying, “I’m not the smartest guy in the world.” And if that wasn’t enough to alter the course of the 21st century, he also disclosed something that reflects more directly on his boss, Rupert Murdoch, and the Fox News network, than anything he’s said previously:

BECK: 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.

First of all, let’s disabuse ourselves of the lunacy that Fox doesn’t allow their hosts to say things that are wrong. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re required to contractually. But the astonishing part of Beck’s assertion that whatever he says must be true or Murdoch wouldn’t let him say it, is that it implies an endorsement by Murdoch of EVERYTHING he says.

If Murdoch doesn’t disassociate himself with these remarks, then he cannot possibly claim to be unaligned with Beck’s dementia. He cannot dismiss what Beck says as “just his own opinion.” From now on, the fact that Murdoch continues to employ Beck is Murdoch’s personal certification of, and agreement with, Beck’s crackpottery. It is now officially Murdoch’s crackpottery. So let’s take a look at the some of the things that Murdoch must believe or he would have fired Beck:

  • 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.

Remember, these are things that Murdoch believes because, if he didn’t, he would have taken Beck off the air. And this doesn’t even touch on Murdoch’s beliefs that can be assumed by his not having ditched Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Gretchen Carlson, Dick Morris, Neil Cavuto, and Sarah Palin. And because Murdoch is fully in support of the Insane Clown Posse he employs, it is a reflection on everything his “news” organization produces, including the Wall Street Journal. He is reigning over a diseased media empire that is ravaged with bias and falsehoods. He is the archetypical unscrupulous press baron. Which makes this pronouncement by Beck all the more intriguing:

“I don’t know what happened to our media. What are you, a bunch of cowards? Is that what you are?”

I almost expected Beck to start flapping his arms, make clucking sounds, and dare the media to cross a line that he drew with his foot. In the following sentence, however, Beck confessed that it is he who is afraid – of union thugs, or Obama’s henchmen, who must be lying in wait for him in some dark alley. Beck has a long history of suggesting that his adversaries are plotting his demise. Persecution is just another symptom of his Messianic complex.

But his question is actually a good one, and one I’ve asked many times. It is remarkable to me that the non-Fox media in America permits Fox to be so overtly dishonest and to mercilessly criticize them without bothering to fight back. Clearly they are afraid, but of what? They have as much (more actually) media spectrum as Fox to get a story out. And they have far more viewers and readers in aggregate. For Fox to get away with bullying them is like Pepsi getting stared down by Harley’s Sarsaparilla and Snuff. So I’ll ask the media the same question: What are you, a bunch of cowards?

Fox News Ratings Dive: American IQ Rebounds

Posted by on April 28, 2010 at 12:34 pm. 32 Comments :

Fox News Tea BagThe latest quarterly Nielsen ratings reveal a promising trend in cable news viewership. This has been a challenging time for all media and, while cable has been relatively stable, it has not been immune from a general advertising slump and softening audience.

While all three of the major cable news networks suffered primetime declines, MSNBC held its audience best, losing only 6% in the past quarter. By comparison Fox News dropped three times as much (-19%), and CNN collapsed (-40%).

CNN’s woes are not particularly surprising. They have utterly failed to define themselves in this era of advocacy journalism. Their approach to a middleground, news-centric broadcast is admirable, but poorly implemented. If they were truly interested in focusing on straight news, they would abandon the pretense of balancing every story on the basis of partisanship and instead balance it on the basis of truth. In other words, stop booking liars just to have a counter-argument. If one guest says the moon is a barren, rocky satellite, you do not need an opposing guest to assert that it’s lime Jello. Or if you do host the lime Jello spokesman, at least offer some post-debate analysis that makes it clear that the Jello argument is known to be false.

MSNBC has benefited in an ironic way by not having had a meteoric rise. Their numbers have been depressed by poor cable coverage and placement on premium tiers. As a result, they have had less distance to fall. Their performance appears to be better on a relative basis simply by maintaining a steady course.

More surprising is the precipitous drop at Fox News. They have been enjoying a surge in the past few years, even when their competition was hurting. For them to get hit so hard this quarter is a significant development. Fox has relied upon a fierce sense of loyalty on the part of their viewers to prop up their ratings. I have described it as something of cult (the Cult of Foxonality) wherein Fox viewers are actually more devoted to the network than to any political party of philosophy. The ratings this quarter suggest that the hold that Fox has had on its audience is weakening.

As evidence of Fox’s diminishing influence, take a look at their biggest star, Glenn Beck. He has lost fully one third of his audience since the beginning of the year. Apparently people are tiring of his redundant, hyperbolic screeds pronouncing that half of the Obama administration are communists and the other half are Satanists. He may also have lost viewers when he called the President a racist and when he insulted Christians by warning them to flee their church if it practiced social justice.

Beck has other problems as well. He has undoubtedly been hurt by an advertiser boycott that has seen a couple of hundred advertisers swear off his program. In the UK he is airing with no advertisers at all. In this environment, how long can Fox News justify keeping him on the schedule? They waved off the ad boycott by bragging about his ratings. With neither ads nor viewers, the only thing they have left is an unpopular clown act that is descending further into televangelism with every episode.

The dilemma for Fox News is complicated. From the start they have been on a mission to advance the conservative philosophy of their owner, Rupert Murdoch, and his henchman, Roger Ailes. Unfortunately for them, they have failed miserably in that regard. They threw everything they had at the Democrats and still lost control of Congress in 2006, lost the White House in 2008, and lost the health care debate in 2010. Despite their ratings dominance they have not been able to convert it to their electoral advantage. What happens when their ratings dominance is gone?

The battle within the Fox executive suites will be one that pits the accountants against the ideologues. And let’s face it, in the rarefied air of Fox News, the accountants are toast. My money is on Fox News doubling down and expanding their partisan rhetoric. That’s what they’ve done in the past. In the months leading up to and following the Obama victory in 2008, Fox didn’t bother to recognize a national trend. Instead, they fortified their conservative flank by signing new long-term contracts with Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. They axed Hannity’s foil, Alan Colmes. They hired reinforcements like Beck, Mike Huckabee, Karl Rove, Dana Perino, Judith Miller, and Sarah Palin. They are not the sort of competitors that back down in the face of adversity – or reason.

If Fox does escalate the wingnut war, they are making a poor bet. They already own the franchise on rightist zealots and are unlikely to gain viewers in that demographic. More likely they can expect to see their ratings decline further. Americans are sick of the divisive ravings of partisan shills who have to resort to making things up in order to sway the debate.

The good news is that since the audience for Fox News has declined, the collective IQ of the country has risen. OK, I made that up, but it seems entirely plausible. Fox News viewers have been shown to be notably less informed, or more misinformed, than the viewers of other networks or the public at large. So it stands to reason that the fewer people infected with Fox lies, the more intelligent we are as a nation. And going forward that can only be a boon to the development of public policy and to democracy itself.

Will Rupert Murdoch Decide The Outcome Of The Election?

Posted by on April 26, 2010 at 12:34 pm. 2 Comments :

The American media stands to learn something from the British. The UK is presently approaching what may be an historic election day. Their two dominant parties, the conservative Tories and the supposedly liberal Labour Party, are being seriously threatened by the surging Liberal Democrats. The possibility exists that Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg could be the next Prime Minister in a coalition government. Needless to say, this is causing apoplexy within the establishment parties.

Independent on MurdochConcurrent with the political upheaval is an intriguing drama playing out in the press. It began with The Independent publishing a special election issue whose headline called out their competition by name, something that media in the UK (and the US) rarely do. That touched a nerve at News Corp, whose top executives, James Murdoch (Rupert’s son and likely successor) and Rebekah Brooks, stormed the offices of The Independent and launched a profanity-laced rant at the editor:

“What the fuck are you playing at?” Murdoch asked Independent editor Simon Kelner. Murdoch accused Kelner of insulting his father’s reputation with an advertising campaign that declared: “Rupert Murdoch won’t decide this election. You will.”

I’m not really sure what the Murdoch scion was so upset about. Was it that The Independent implied that Murdoch’s intention was to influence the election? If so, then why did Murdoch actually brag about doing so after the election in 1992 when his newspaper blasted the headline, “It’s the Sun wot won it?” Or was Jimmy upset that The Independent insulted daddy’s virility by saying that he would not have any impact over the election?

The video makes a salient and troubling point that Murdoch controls 40% of the press in Britain and that he isn’t shy about using it to advance his agenda. That’s a position that many Brits have held for years, but it isn’t often that members of the media class raise objections to such monopolistic domination within their ranks.

It doesn’t take much imagination to extend the story arc of this melodrama to the U.S. Rupert Murdoch’s grip on American media is at least as strangulating. And he, along with his network general Roger Ailes, blatantly stain their so-called news coverage with a bright red Republican hue. They feature GOP candidates repeatedly, providing them with valuable free airtime. Their anchors and contributors brazenly campaign, on the air and off, for Republican politicians and policies. And they castigate their political enemies as “despicable,” “socialist,” and even “treasonous.”

So the question is, how will the non-Fox media in this country respond? Will they challenge Fox’s unrelenting biases? Will they report that it exists? Would they ever imagine publishing a simple and reasonable question like “Will Rupert Murdoch Decide The Outcome of the Election?”

Sadly, all the evidence points to a negative answer in every instance. Either they regard the unwritten law against criticizing competing news enterprises as a mortal sin, or they are are just quivering cowards who couldn’t care less about honesty and ethics in journalism. Last year I wrote an article that asked “Who’s Afraid of Fox News?” It documented the lengths to which Fox would go to assault their media adversaries, while the rest of the press never bothered to swing back at Fox. What are they afraid of? Do they think that Ailes is going to barge into their offices and fleck spittle at them in a tempestuous tirade? Actually, that’s probably part of it, and is genuinely frightening.

One of the very few righteous counterpunches was delivered by the former editor of the New York Times, Howell Raines. He wrote an op-ed that asked a series of pointed and appropriate questions:

  • Why don’t honest journalists take on Roger Ailes and Fox News?
  • Why haven’t America’s old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration – a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?
  • Why has our profession, through its general silence – or only spasmodic protest – helped Fox legitimize a style of journalism that is dishonest in its intellectual process, untrustworthy in its conclusions and biased in its gestalt?
  • Why can’t American journalists steeped in the traditional values of their profession be loud and candid about the fact that Murdoch does not belong to our team?

Unfortunately, Raines wrote that after he was no longer working for the Times. He ought to have raised these questions when he had a platform to act on them and seek answers. Where are the working journalists now who will take Fox on and report the truth? Is there any media outlet in the U.S. with the courage of the U.K.’s Independent? Hopefully somebody here is paying attention because we have our own elections coming up later this year and the last thing we need is for Rupert Murdoch to decide the outcome.