Rupert Murdoch

The Wall Street Journal And Network Neutrality

Posted by on December 16, 2008 at 2:18 am. NO Comments :

An article in the Wall Street Journal is reporting that prominent advocates of Network Neutrality are reversing or softening their positions on the concept of treating all Internet traffic equally. The authors go into some depth in support of their contention that the movement is losing steam. And they name names.

“Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content…”

“Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. have withdrawn quietly from a coalition formed two years ago to protect network neutrality.”

“In addition, prominent Internet scholars, some of whom have advised President-elect Barack Obama on technology issues, have softened their views on the subject.”

“Lawrence Lessig, an Internet law professor at Stanford University and an influential proponent of network neutrality, recently shifted gears by saying at a conference that content providers should be able to pay for faster service.”

Unfortunately for the WSJ, almost everyone they cite denies the conclusions the article draws and affirms their commitment to Network Neutrality.

Google: Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday’s Journal story, I want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open.

Barack Obama: The Obama transition team is reaffirming his complete commitment to net neutrality and is disputing a much-discussed report today claiming that the President-elect is softening his support for it or shifting his position on it.

Lawrence Lessig: I don’t know what Google is doing, though if they are trying to negotiate exclusive deals for privileged access, that shows exactly why we need network neutrality regulation […] I’ve not seen anything during the Obama campaign or from the transition to indicate it has shifted its view about network neutrality at all.

Perhaps the only position correctly reported in the WSJ story is that Yahoo and Microsoft have strayed from the pro-Network Neutrality crowd. However, that separation occurred two years ago when they tightened their relationships with Telecom companies and was therefore, not a new development as the Journal implied.

So why would the Journal so badly mangle this story? They obviously didn’t bother to seek comments from the people or companies they quoted. Reporting the accurate positions of these parties would not have been difficult to do. Instead, the misquoted parties had to find other forums to set the record straight after the Journal had already hit the streets.

It would be easy to blame this shoddy work on the new Wall Street Journal as envisioned by its new owner, tabloid merchant Rupert Murdoch. But it goes deeper than that. The main companies that oppose Network Neutrality are the big Telecom and Cable businesses. Murdoch’s News Corp is heavily dependent on them for distribution of his television networks. He launched his Fox Business Network one year ago and it is still struggling for carriage. It presently passes less than half the homes of its primary competitor, CNBC. Do you think that Murdoch might be interested in getting AT & T, Comcast, Time Warner, etc., to put FBN on all of their systems? Do you think that he might like to get favored treatment and channel space for Fox News, FX, Fox Sports, National Geographic, and the rest of his cable properties?

And the big question: Do you think that Murdoch would use his Wall Street Journal to lobby for the interests of his other business assets? Of course he would – he’s Rupert Murdoch.

The Wall Street Journal After A Year With Murdoch

Posted by on December 13, 2008 at 2:30 pm. NO Comments :

It was one year ago today that the Dow Jones Company, parent of the Wall Street Journal, agreed to be acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. That transaction marked another step in the shrinking universe of media ownership. Specifically, it was the consumption of a revered publishing institution by a voracious international megalopoly. So what did the Bancroft family and other shareholders get for their greedy acquiescence to the power-mad mogul?

One year ago, the $60.00 per share offer from News Corp was about a 67% premium over Dow Jones’ then current price. Anyone who immediately liquidated their holdings following the transaction (which no one did) would have made a nice profit. Everyone else just watched as their fortunes shriveled up. The parent of Fox News has declined 60% in the past year. That means that the $5 billion dollars spent on Dow Jones has a current value of $2 billion. That’s not a particularly impressive performance.

As for Murdoch’s financial fate, rather than adding a $5 billion asset to his empire, his company’s market cap declined $32 billion – that’s more than six times what he spent on Dow Jones.

Now it would be easy to blame this all on the economic collapse, and certainly that plays a significant part. The only problem is that News Corp fell further than any of its competitors.

Company % Decline
News Corp 60
New York Times 55
Washington Post 50
Time Warner 44
Dow Jones Index 35
Disney 29

From a financial perspective, it doesn’t appear that the folks at Dow Jones made a particularly sound decision. While it’s impossible to say where these investments would be had News Corp not come along, it seems that they would have done no worse than the rest of the field. The difference is that they would still have their independence. They would not have had their publisher replaced by a Murdoch loyalist from England. And they would not have been ordered to shorten their stories and shift their focus from business to general news so that Murdoch could taunt his enemies at the New York Times (which he is also now rumored to fancy).

Murdoch’s business prowess is widely exaggerated. His New York Post has lost money for the past decade – the whole time he has owned it. And his celebrated purchase of MySpace when it was the unchallenged leader in social networking, hasn’t really worked out so well. MySpace is now second to a surging Facebook. Fox News itself is consistently the slowest growing news network on cable TV.

The biggest advantage for a Dow Jones tie in with News Corp was the potential for a television platform. The Wall Street Journal badly missed out by allowing CNBC and Bloomberg to run away with that market. Murdoch of course has his new Fox Business Network, but due to contractual commitments with CNBC, he is not permitted to use the DJ assets. And by the time those contracts expire, the dismally low-rated FBN may be history.

So…all in all, Dow Jones probably would have been better off if they had left well enough alone. They lost some prominent and experienced talent when Murdoch took over. And although he is moving slowly, so as not to spook his staff and subscribers, we can still expect him to put his personal stamp on the enterprise by dumbing down the content to reach a broader market. That’s been his M.O. throughout his entire career and there are no signs that he is abandoning his affection for tabloid sensationalism and rightist propaganda.

Does Rupert Murdoch Despise Bill O’Reilly?

Posted by on November 28, 2008 at 1:00 pm. 6 Comments :

The question of Rupert Murdoch’s relationship with his top-rated TV blowhard, Bill O’Reilly, has come up before. Now, courtesy of Michael Calderone at Politico, an excerpt from Michael Wolff’s upcoming biography of Murdoch is asserting that:

“It is not just Murdoch (and everybody else at News Corp.’s highest levels) who absolutely despises Bill O’Reilly, the bullying, mean-spirited, and hugely successful evening commentator, but Roger Ailes himself who loathes him. Success, however, has cemented everyone to each other.”

If Murdoch and Ailes “absolutely despise” O’Reilly, I can only hope they come to despise me as much. The apparent reward for such hatred is endless fawning, copious perks, and a brand new multimillion dollar contract renewal. But I wouldn’t get too excited. Wolff provides very little support for his conclusion, and what he does provide is weak and contradicted by past comments and behavior.

Wolff suggests that Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, was in part to distance himself from the tenor of Fox News. Though why he thinks that the famously conservative newspaper is a departure from the obvious partiality of Fox is a mystery. Wolff seems to think that Murdoch finds the more sedate bias of the Journal preferable to the loudmouth variety at Fox. However, he doesn’t consider the more likely scenario that Murdoch will turn up the volume at the Journal. He has already said publicly that wants the Journal to publish shorter, punchier stories, with less business and more general news. And Wolff, at least in this excerpt, doesn’t consider that a major factor in purchasing the Journal was to beef up resources for Murdoch’s recently launched Fox Business Network.

Politico’s Calderone curiously opines that Murdoch’s political views are “difficult to pin down.” In support of this he cites Murdoch’s backing for Thatcher, Reagan, Blair, Koch, and McCain. That seems pretty easy to pin down to me. They are all notable conservatives with the exception of Tony Blair, who started out as a progressive Labour Party leader, but ended up as a Bush lapdog. And rumors have it that Murdoch and Blair made a pact early on that if Blair did not interfere with Murdoch’s business aspirations, Murdoch would see to it that News Corp. enterprises (including the London Times, the Sun, and the Sky News satellite network) would stand behind Blair.

As further evidence of Murdoch’s squishy liberalism, the article cites the New York Post’s endorsement of Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. But the endorsement from the Post reads like an outright condemnation. Here are some highlights from the Post’s column endorsing Obama:

  • “…an untried candidate, to be sure…”
  • “Obama is not without flaws.”
  • “For all his charisma and his eloquence, the rookie senator sorely lacks seasoning…”
  • “Regarding national security, his worldview is beyond naive…”
  • “His all-things-to-all-people approach to complicated domestic issues also arouses scant confidence”
  • “…he is not Team Clinton…That counts for a very great deal.”
  • “…we don’t agree much with Obama on substantive issues.”

With friends like that, who needs enemas? The Post eventually endorsed McCain in the general election. And unlike the Obama endorsement, it was enthusiastic and complimentary.

I don’t for minute believe that Murdoch has become disenchanted with O’Reilly or Fox News. His views are as consistent as ever. In September he lashed out at Obama saying that he is a naive, 60’s style Socialist, and that his administration would worsen inflation, ruin America’s relationships with other nations, and drive companies to leave the country. All achievements for which George W. Bush can already claim credit.

Shallow analysis like that of Wolff and Politico has been asserted before. In the end, Murdoch is who he has always been: an irredeemably conservative corporatist, consumed with lust for money and power. As long as O’Reilly contributes to those goals, Murdoch’s love for him will endure.

Hilarious Update: Kara Swisher at All Things Digital has dredged up a laughably appropriate example of Michael Wolff’s deficiency of insight. In 1998 Wolff said:

“I think the myth of the Internet is that it is going to come into everybody’s home.”

Good call, Mikey.

The Powerful Powerlessness Of The Liberal Media

Posted by on November 23, 2008 at 12:28 pm. NO Comments :

Mark Halperin is a political analyst for Time Magazine and runs “The Page,” a political website, for Time.com. Prior to that he was the political director for ABC News for ten years. It’s important to know this about him when considering what he said at a conference on the recently concluded election this past week at USC. He was expressing his opinion on the performance of the media during the campaign:

“It’s the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war. It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”

You can’t get more mainstream than Mark Halperin. Yet this exemplar of institutional media is taking his colleagues to task for failing to adhere to standards of objectivity that presumably he employs. So you have to wonder why Halperin didn’t bother to sound the bias alarm until two and a half weeks after election day. If he noticed what he now calls a “disgusting failure” in campaign coverage, why didn’t he bring it up when something could have been done about it? For that matter, why didn’t he bring up the failures with regard to Iraq before this? Seeing as he had a prominent platform in both publishing and broadcasting, but was absent with regard to these issues, what does it say about his credibility?

You also have to wonder how Halperin ranks failures with respect to their disgustingness. Does he really think that a candidate bias is equivalent to the utter professional neglect that the media exhibited while cheerleading for the war in Iraq? Even if there were a slanting of political preference, does that compare to inventing mortal enemies and printing lies about their imminent threat? Does he rate the consequences equally now that 4,000 plus Americans have been killed and perhaps more than a million Iraqis; now that we know the truth about WMDs and our leaders dishonesty; and now that our nation is approaching bankruptcy having spent $2 billion a month in Iraq for five years?

It strains the imagination to explain how he could place those two events in the same sentence. But what makes it even worse is that he doesn’t bother to offer proof of his contention that the media was pro-Obama. He seems to be jumping on the right-wing, Republican bandwagon that is flailing around to manufacture excuses for why they lost. It certainly couldn’t be because the people preferred the Democrat. Much of the noise about an alleged bias for Obama actually amounts to a realistic appraisal of events. Every report of McCain’s more frequent use of negative ads, a fact documented by independent studies, is regarded by conservatives as anti-McCain. Likewise, every report of Obama leading in the polls, which was the case for most of the last six weeks of the campaign, is regarded by the same right-wingers as pro-Obama. Under these circumstances, the only way to be considered neutral would be to distort the truth.

There is a rather duplicitous argument circulating that there is no way voters would have been stupid enough to have chosen Barack Obama were they not mislead by the media. However, that argument still implies that voters were stupid for having been mislead. So no matter how you look at it, the right believes that the voters are stupid.

The stupidity is compounded by the assertion that the people have fallen under the sway of an omnipotent press that is dominated by liberals. Everyone from Rush Limbaugh to William Krystal complain that Obama was given a free ride. They must think that there was never any negative coverage of him. They must have never heard of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or the “fact” that Obama was a Muslim, or how he “refused” to wear an American flag lapel pin, or that he was a Socialist, or an elitist, or that he palled around with terrorists. There must not have been any reports of how women would not support him, or Latinos, or Jews, or hard-working whites, or people who cling to guns and religion. The press must have buried news that Obama was the most liberal senator with a long record of far-left extremism, but was also inexperienced with no record of public service.

What it really comes down to, from the rightists perspective, is that the so-called liberal media has manipulated the people, who are so subjugated to its authority. This view requires acceptance as fact that the media has an unfettered ability to control the thoughts of its audience. Actually, I believe there is some degree of truth to that. The problem is that, in a feat of championship self-contradiction, the people making the complaint don’t believe it. In fact, they argue that the media has lost its influence due to its lack of balance. There is some degree of truth to that as well, but not what is proposed by conservatives. A study by the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School shows that 62% of those surveyed are distrustful of campaign media coverage. That will certainly have an impact on the media’s influence and business status. Conservatives say that the presence of liberal bias is the principle reason that business is slumping and that people have stopped watching and reading. Rupert Murdoch calls it “a culture of ‘complacency and condescension.'”

“The complacency stems from having enjoyed a monopoly–and now finding they have to compete for an audience they once took for granted. The condescension that many show their readers is an even bigger problem. It takes no special genius to point out that if you are contemptuous of your customers, you are going to have a hard time getting them to buy your product.”

In other words, give the people what they want, not what represents reality. And in Murdoch’s world, the people want non-stop bashing of liberals and promotion of free-market, evangelical conservatism (along with Page 3 soft-porn and Page 6 gossip). Unfortunately for him, his theory falls apart when you note that his company, a condescending monopoly if there ever was one, has lost 67% of it value in the past year. It would be difficult to blame that on the liberal bias of Fox News and the New York Post.

Bottom line: According to conservatives, the all-powerful liberal media is directing the votes of a pliable electorate. And they are doing this despite the fact that voters don’t trust the media and are tuning them out. So somehow the media is able to sway public opinion even when the public has stopped listening to the media. That’s a neat trick. It’s also a failure of logic on the part of rightists who are desperately searching for an explanation for their loss that doesn’t include the phrase, “We suck!”

New York Times Goes Soft On New York Post

Posted by on November 17, 2008 at 12:48 pm. NO Comments :

In a New York Times column today by Richard Perez-Pena, the case is made that the New York Post’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, has gone soft on Barack Obama and liberals in general. The evidence cited for this ideological tectonic shift is a shallow observation that the Post has not published its usual brand of slander in the few days that have passed since the election. The Times writes…

“Starting the day before the voting, the paper’s coverage of Mr. Obama turned positive, even admiring, sprinkled with gauzy bits about his family life, even urging him at one point to adopt a particular puppy for his daughters. A few days after the election, The Post published a 12-page special section about Mr. Obama, wrapped in that two-page photo of him.”

Anyone who regards this as anything but a convenient post-election holiday from their customary hostility has thoroughly lost perspective. Murdoch is a businessman and the Post is a money-losing rag in the heart of the Democratic haven of New York City. What was the Post supposed to do in the wake of this historic election, publish pictures of Obama in Hip-Hop gear with his arm around Osama Bin Laden? (That’s for next month’s issue).

For the Times to project from that that Murdoch is a secret Obama fan suggests they are taking their own holiday from sanity. Fox News is as vitriolic as ever. As a national network, they are not confined to a single market that is in disaccord with their views. So folks like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Neil Cavuto, are still free to brutally disparage Obama and all Democrats and other liberals. Gary Ginsberg, a Fox News spokesman, made an effort to disguise Murdoch’s prejudice against Obama by saying that…

“Rupert met him, spent a good deal of time with him, and I think he’s been very taken by his intellect, by his ability to inspire and by the opportunity that he has to truly take America in a positive direction on education issues, social issues and others.”

That, of course, flies in the face of Murdoch’s own words. The Post endorsed John McCain and Murdoch admitted publicly that he “had something to do with it.” It is extremely unlikely that he has changed his anti-Obama positions from those expressed just last month, and hardly represent an endorsement of Obama’s inspirational abilities:

Murdoch: “[Obama’s] policy is really very, very naive, old fashioned, 1960’s socialist.”

In the same commentary, Murdoch also said that an Obama administration would worsen inflation, ruin America’s relationships with other nations, and drive companies to leave the country. That’s funny, I thought that George W. Bush had already done all of that. Perhaps that’s what Murdoch means when he talks about “tak[ing] America in a positive direction.”

The Times went on to mention a meeting held with Murdoch, Obama, and Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. It is characterized as “a bid to moderate Fox’s coverage of Mr. Obama,” but that’s just more PR manure. In truth, it was a transparent bid to persuade Obama to appear on their network. For most of the campaign Obama had snubbed Fox News. They were was missing out on the most exciting political story of the year because of their overt bias. Obama reportedly let Ailes have it during the meeting:

“Obama lit into Ailes. He said that he didn’t want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife, that Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign, fearsome – just short of a terrorist.”

This is the real Murdoch, and the one who will endure over time. The notion that he has grown fond of Obama is naive in the extreme. And the fact that the Times would suggest such nonsense ought to bring them much embarrassment. It is not just poor analysis and shoddy journalism, it is delusional. Yet somehow it is in sync with the media conclusion that despite Obama’s overwhelming victory we are still a center-right country. That’s our liberal media talking.

Progressive Media In The Obama Era

Posted by on November 11, 2008 at 5:20 pm. 1 Comments :

With the election over, prognostications about the new administration of Barack Obama, and the fate of the losers, began in earnest. Almost simultaneously, speculation arose concerning the direction and prospects for the media in general, and the cable news networks in particular. The conventional wisdom (always conventional, rarely wise) is that Fox News will thrive in the role of a voice for the opposition and MSNBC will struggle for lack of drama. This analysis presumes that audiences respond only to conflict and that the Obama victory will put conservatives on edge and liberals to sleep.

There is some merit to this theory, but, us usual, it is too narrowly drawn to be enlightening. If contrarian politics were paramount then Fox would not have flourished during its early years of the Clinton administration, which it opposed, as well as the Bush years that followed, which it embraced. A common misconception about the success of Fox News is that it was driven by its conservative point of view. The only role ideology played was that it funneled all of the right-leaning viewers to one channel, allowing Fox to score higher in Nielsen ratings. The larger truth is that it transformed stodgy news delivery into thrill-inducing combat and soap opera. They created an us-vs-them, hero narrative that feeds on the same zealotry as a religious cult.

The race for president provided ample opportunity for the sort of melodrama upon which the new generation of cable news networks thrive. Fox took full advantage of this promoting, and even creating, friction where it otherwise would not have existed. Who can forget (despite how desperately we try):

  • William Ayers
  • Rev. Jeremiah Wright
  • Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher (the Plumber)
  • ACORN
  • Drill, baby drill
  • Elitists
  • Flag pins
  • Muslim Madrassas

The irrelevance of these phony issues is confirmed by how quickly they have vanished from the news scene. The campaign season stirred the pot, but the conclusion of the campaign is not the end of controversy. We are still mired in war, a collapsing economy, a climate crisis, and a multitude of other critical affairs that will define the next four years.

Nevertheless, cable news is going to have to undergo a post-election makeover. Brit Hume has already left the building. Some reports from Fox News insiders suggest that they will be taking a softer approach toward the President-elect (don’t believe it). Keith Olbermann’s Countdown contains segments like “Bushed” and “McCain in the Membrane” that will need to be retired. Political contests will likely play a smaller role in his program and others, and the void will have to be filled by something else. In the search for new themes, I would like to suggest one that is ever-present and exerts an overdue influence on American politics and culture: the Media.

There will always be political, social, and global controversies. They will erupt between and within party affiliations. The one thing that ties them all together is that they are fodder for interpretation by the media. The characterization of ideas can be instrumental in their acceptance or rejection by the people. Ideally, news organizations would be neutral providers of information and analysis, but those days may be long past. The modern era of television news seems to have irreversibly digressed into partisan advocacy. Even Fox News, the home of the “fair and balanced” fallacy, seems to have abandoned that pretense. Chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes was asked by Broadcasting and Cable Magazine about their post-election prospects:

B & C: [W]ill the news side of Fox News face an apathetic audience, compounded by being on the losing end of a national election?

Ailes: There may be certain elements of our audience that turn away between now and the inauguration. I think cable numbers overall will drop, although there is a fascination with Obama.

Notice that Ailes doesn’t object to the question’s premise that Fox was “on the losing end” of the election. The reality of Fox’s bias is so well established now that he doesn’t even bother to refute it. If Ailes’ response isn’t validation enough, listen to his executive VP, John Moody, from the same article, describing Obama as…

“…a once-in-a-lifetime politician and that means he’s smart enough to know that, despite his prescient 2004 speech, there are red voters and blue voters. And he wants to reach out and get the red ones, too.”

Here we have Moody blithely confessing that Fox is the venue for conservative viewers. This is something that Moody and Ailes would have vehemently denied in the past. Today it is treated as a foregone conclusion. That’s what makes observation of the media such a rich vein for the sort of melodrama that excites cable news programmers and viewers. The presentation of the news is so narrowly focused and poorly produced that it invites criticism, sarcasm, and ridicule.

This is where progressive media can excel. The Rupert Murdochs of the world aren’t interested in self-examination or improvement. They have an agenda to pursue and they won’t let a little thing like truth get in the way. Witness the inveterate lying of folks like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. Liberals are generally more predisposed toward ethical oversight and, thus, make better watchdogs. With the decline of political content in the news cycle, this would be an opportune time to jump headlong into media analysis and criticism.

Scrutiny of the press has the added benefit of expanding the audience base because those who are skeptical of the press are a diverse group. An honest appraisal of reporters and pundits will appeal to a broad swath of news consumers. Evidence of this is the popularity of a couple of programs on Comedy Central. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report demonstrate the appeal of programming that takes on the press. Many analysts misconstrue these shows as political satire, but that is not an accurate characterization. They are media satire programs. Everything they do is less a statement on policy than it is a statement on the absurdity and incompetence of the people who bring us the news. It is also noteworthy that conservative attempts at this endeavor have all failed miserably.

Drawing attention to the media is also fertile ground for effective reform. It is potentially the most powerful avenue for political change. Every issue that faces citizens and their representatives has to be disseminated through the media apparatus. So whether it’s healthcare, education, taxes, energy, etc., it is the press that will shape much of the public’s view. The more light that is cast on the press, the more likely they will modify their behavior. So if cable news figures like Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Campbell Brown, and even Fox’s Shepard Smith (who has been known to take swipes at his net’s coverage), step up and challenge their industry, they could have more impact, and do more good, then if they merely assume the posture of another kvetching pundit.

The next few weeks will tell whether the press has learned anything, whether it is interested in self-reflection and reform, and whether it is capable of fulfilling its traditional role as a check on a government that would much prefer to work in secret. This will also be an outstanding time to have media watchers illuminating the stage and exposing the imperfections and deceits of those who purport to inform us. Let’s hope they heed the call. Because, now more than ever, we need an open, honest, and diverse fourth estate to document the progress of what may be the most astonishing political achievement in this nation’s short history.

News Corp Suffers 30% Decline In Income

Posted by on November 6, 2008 at 3:43 pm. 2 Comments :

In its quarterly earnings report released yesterday, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation reported a net income decline of 30 percent:

“Fiscal 2009 profit will drop in the ‘low to mid teens’ in percentage terms, New York-based News Corp. said on a conference call yesterday after U.S. markets closed, citing falling advertising sales and the stronger dollar. The company previously forecast a gain of 4 percent to 6 percent.”

This drop needs to viewed in the context of a broader Wall Street sell off. However, News Corp, parent of Fox News, is significantly under-performing the stock market indexes. For the past 52 weeks, News Corps’ stock price is down 63 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is off only 36 percent. [Ironic Note: Dow Jones is also owned by News Corp]

News Corp is also under-performing its competitors. CNN parent Time Warner is down 48 percent and NBC/MSNBC parent General Electric is off 54 percent. The fact that News Corp is faring so much worse than its nemesis GE must be gnawing away at folks like Bill O’Reilly, who frequently cites GE’s stock woes as evidence that NBC/MSNBC is evil and unpopular. Now that Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow have lifted MSNBC’s ratings above his own, will O’Reilly now concede that Fox News is even more evil and less popular?

In the conference call for the earnings release, Murdoch indicated that…

“The revised guidance is a clear reflection of the fiscal environment. We expect that to continue through fiscal 2009.”

Even though Murdoch had previously predicted a prolonged downturn, he is still managing to blame it on Barack Obama. A few days ago he said that Obama’s policies were “crazy” and would be “a real setback.” Since he is on record as far back as May 2008, with his view that we are in for 18 difficult months, it’s hard to figure how he lays these hardships on Obama who won’t even take office until next January.

In addition to the bad earnings news, Murdoch announced that there will be severe job cuts at News Corp. These cuts will occur even as new multimillion dollar contracts have been given to O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. At least some of Murdoch’s employees will have a little job security. However, none of them will have a holiday party this December as financial constraints have resulted in the party’s cancellation.

Season’s Greetings Rupert, et al.

Pundits Make Electoral College Vote Predictions

Posted by on November 2, 2008 at 2:05 pm. NO Comments :

As the 2008 campaign winds to close, the pundit class is weighing with their electoral vote calls. It’s bad news for John McCain when everyone is predicting a Barack Obama win and the Republicans give Obama bigger victory margins than the Democrats. Below are the predicted Electoral College votes for Obama (270 needed to win).

Democrats:
Arianna Huffington: 318
Paul Begala: 325
Hilary Rosen: 333
Donna Brazile: 343
Eleanor Clift: 349
James Carville: 365
Democratic Average: 338.8

Republicans:
Alex Castellanos: 318
Matthew Dowd: 338
Ed Rollins: 352
George Will: 378
Republican Average: 346.5

Media
Chris Cillizza, Washington Post: 312
Craig Crawford, Congressional Quarterly: 333
David Gergen, CNN: 338
Mark Halperin, Time Magazine: 349
George Stephanopoulos, ABC: 353
Larry Sabato, UVA: 364
Media Average: 341.5

If you exempt McCain campaign operatives and rightist pod-people like Hannity, O’Reilly and Limbaugh, there are few Republican advocates expressing much hope. Last week Fox News Executive VP John Moody pronounced McCain’s campaign over. Even Rupert Murdoch predicted a landslide victory for Obama way back in May.

Are Republicans in some sort of shock? What does it mean when uber-conservative George Will puts Obama in landslide territory and suggests a stronger outcome for Obama than Democratic icon James Carville? Maybe it doesn’t mean a thing. Most of these people are wrong more often that not, so we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on what they are saying today. Still, it will be interesting to store this for future reference to see how these predictions compare with the actual results.

Sarah Palin Pines For Pet Press

Posted by on October 30, 2008 at 1:38 am. 1 Comments :

Just when you thought that irony had reached peaks that would not be revisited for a generation or two, along comes a contender that exceeds all expectations. Sarah Palin is such a contender, and today she demonstrates why the great ones can never be counted out.

The latest fake controversy to be heralded by right-wing media is the so called “discovery” of an article that was actually published six months ago in the Los Angeles Times about Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Barack Obama was reported to have attended a party for Khalidi where some Palestinian guests made some incendiary remarks about Israel. Of course there is nothing tying Obama to the statements or the speakers, but that hasn’t stopped the press from latching onto the story and making irresponsible and unsubstantiated allegations.

At the front of the line is Fox News, where Brit Hume, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, etc., are already barking their patented phony outrage at Obama and the L.A. Times. At the crux of their complaints is their dismay that the Times will not release a video tape they have of the event. The Times issued a statement explaining that they received the tape from a source with an agreement that it would not be released. If Fox and its spokesmodels were actually journalists they would understand the concept of confidentiality and the privilege that exists between reporters and their sources. But we’re talking about Fox here, so an understanding of journalistic ethics may be too much to ask.

It’s not just Fox who is fanning the flames. John McCain and Sarah Palin have taken up the call and are using this affair to further pound on the press. This is where the irony comes in as Palin said this at a rally today:

“It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking after his best interests like that. Maybe some politicians would love to have a pet newspaper of their very own.”

This statement, coming from a woman who has coordinated her entire campaign with Fox News, is really a remarkable exhibition of chutzpah. She is herself a candidate with a major news organization looking after her interests. And she even has pet newspapers in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and Wall Street Journal. She and McCain have a relationship with a media company that is perhaps more intimate than any in history. And yet Palin is implying that Obama is being protected by the liberal L.A. Times who endorsed him for president. Did I mention that the Times has never before endorsed a Democrat for president? That’s right, despite having the words “Los Angeles” in the name, the Times has never been a liberal paper.

And by the way, Khalidi, that subversive professor that Obama was palling around with – he also received funding by a foundation that was chaired by, you guessed it, John McCain.

Ironic, huh?

Fox News Cancels New York Times

Posted by on October 20, 2008 at 4:22 pm. 4 Comments :

This past weekend, the New York Times published a profile of John McCain’s wife, Cindy. Included in the article were facts relating to Sen. McCain’s adulterous relationship with his future second wife, as well as Ms. McCain’s troubles with drugs. These are simply factual episodes that any responsible biographical piece would have to address.

Predictably, the McCain campaign was outraged and immediately began shouting about media bias and tabloid journalism. Whereupon the masters of tabloidism, Fox News, came to McCain’s aid by parroting his complaints and even helping to punish the Times by providing viewers with a telephone number they could call to cancel their subscriptions. This all occurred during a “news” broadcast, not the O’Reilly Factor.

The hubris of Fox News never seems to find it’s peak. It would be one thing for them to report on the controversial article and McCain’s response. They might even follow that up with their own views as to the presence of bias in the article. At this point everyone knows that Fox shamelessly inserts their opinions into their reporting, and since McCain has already declared war against the Times, it’s only natural that Fox, the network of the Republican National Committee, would follow suit. However, by participating in a effort to encourage the cancellation of subscribers to the paper, Fox is crossing a new line that is much further out in the sand than was previously drawn.

Aside from the obvious advocacy on the part of Fox News for the McCain candidacy, and their staking out a position on the paper’s coverage, Fox News has a vested financial interest in harming the Times. Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. which also owns Times competitors the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. So this partisan interference in political affairs is also a brazen attempt to damage a competitor in the marketplace.

The many tentacles of the Murdoch empire continue to raise questions about monopolies and anti-trust. Is it proper for one News Corp. property to openly advocate that customers abandon a competitor of another property? If so, could NBC, which is owned by General Electric, broadcast appeals to their viewers to stop purchasing light bulbs or refrigerators made by their competitors? Could ABC, which is owned by Disney, run stories that advise people not to attend Six Flags Amusement Parks in an effort to boost attendance at Disneyland?

These are some of the easily anticipated problems with the sort of unregulated consolidation that has been rampant in the recent past, particularly in Republican administrations. If anti-trust laws aren’t taken seriously and vigorously enforced, the corporate chieftains end up controlling and manipulating markets to the detriment of competition and consumers. Barack Obama is on record in opposition to the Bush policy of ignoring, or advancing, corporate collusion, consolidation, and other anti-competitive activity:

“We’re going to have an antitrust division in the Justice Department that actually believes in antitrust law. We haven’t had that for the last seven, eight years.”

If Obama follows through on that pledge, we might begin to see some progress toward a truly open, diverse, and fair marketplace in the media and elsewhere. Regulations will need to be refined and some conglomerates will need to be broken up. Real reform in this area will be difficult to achieve, but it is essential if we want a system that provides a level playing field for everyone.