Thanks to Newshounds for this video wherein Olbermann brilliantly juxtaposes Murdoch’s rare moment of honesty with the instructions William Randolph Hearst gave to an illustrator who couldn’t find any evidence of the war in Cuba that Hearst was jonesing for:
“You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war.”
As yesterday’s debate in the Senate stumbled aimlessly for hours without conclusion, there were moments of clarity from unexpected sources:
“If you believe that this new strategy is flawed or that our cause is hopeless, then vote to stop it. Vote to cut off funds. Vote for a binding timeline for U.S. withdrawal.” ~ Joe Lieberman (I)
Here, here. Of course Joe was making a completely different point than what this soundbite implies. The rest of his mutterings affirmed his well known affection for the Bush Doctrine and his purpose was to help Republicans in the senate quash an open and substantive debate.
The debate that Democrats are attempting to hold in the senate has already been held in the rest of the country. Though you wouldn’t know it by the news reports, the American people have made an overwhelming and durable decision that the war in Iraq does not serve the interests of our soldiers, our security, or our country. Poll after poll bears this out. And yet Congress still feels a need to have a debate. They are so far behind the people they purport to serve that they can’t even see us in the distance.
This representational disconnect is all the more perplexing when you consider that our representatives have just emerged from a campaign that was utterly devoid of ambiguity. November 7, 2006, was a rebuke of the Bush administration due almost entirely to their stubborn insistence on prosecuting this unnecessary, unpopular, and counter-productive war in Iraq. The Republican Party lost both chambers of Congress because the people were sick and tired of suffering the loss of human life and national honor. But now, with the Democratic victors in Washington, the people are still waiting for leadership.
The Democratic Party would be wise to heed Sen. Lieberman’s advice. We need a vote NOW to STOP the war. The people have made their decision and it is time for our servants in Washington to pay attention to US. Ignore the pundits and the liars who have been wrong for four years running. Ignore the media that continues to promulgate myths from decades past. Ending the war does not mean we don’t support the troops. Ending the war does not make us weak on defense. To the contrary, it strengthens our defensive position by allowing us to deploy the troops in the real war against terrorism for which Iraq was never the central front.
If the newly minted Democratic Congress is not able to follow the instructions we gave a mere three months ago, then it is not just the war in Iraq that is hopeless. We need to start worrying about the viability of Democracy. How much louder do we need to shout? It isn’t that they can’t hear us, it’s that they don’t want to. But they know we can hear them. Even Sen. Lieberman knows that:
“…we are being heard across America by our constituents, who are wondering if their Congress is capable of serious action, not just hollow posturing.”
But, sadly, Jon Stewart makes the most cogent observation in response:
“Turns out they weren’t even capable of hollow posturing.”
Vote to STOP the war!
Since Saturday, when I first posted this article, Murdoch Confesses To Propaganda On Iraq, the news has been defying Mark Twain’s axiom that “A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on.”
The truth’s boots are on and it is logging miles like crazy. Rupert Murdoch’s admission that he tried to use his media empire to shape the agenda on Iraq is spreading like wildfire. Newshounds, Crooks and Liars, Huffington Post, Carpetbagger, Juan Cole, Raw Story, and scads of lesser known but just as dedicated bloggers are trumpeting this surprising shard of honesty that escaped from Rupert’s lips.
I’m still trying to figure out how such an unguarded comment could have occurred. Is he just so brazenly arrogant now that he thinks he can come clean without repercussions? Is it a coded appeal to his neo-con audience for help to reverse the downward ratings spiral he’s engulfed in? Was it a run of the mill slip of the tongue by a 77 year old with weakening cognition skills?
While I can’t explain what was going through his diabolical mind, I can point to the reason that this story is getting so much play. And, ironically, it’s also something that Murdoch said in Davos. Referring to the Internet, he said that:
…traditional media are also “put right immediately” these days when making mistakes. […] Similarly, Murdoch said “government now has to be much more open” because of the Web
Indeed, the Internet has proven to be the conventional media’s fact-checker. And it isn’t just government whose openness has to be reaffirmed. It’s getting more difficult to use the propagandistic arts because there now exists a public forum over which the message controllers have not yet imposed their domination. I emphasize “not yet.”
The Internet is a powerful medium and the most significant contribution to a democratized media since Gutenburg. But it is not impervious to attack or capture. There is a reason that the Big Media megaliths want to kill network neutrality. There is a reason they want to remove ownership caps for television and newspapers. There is a reason the right wing elements at the FCC, the FEC, and other government agencies relentlessly push for deregulation. These are all ways of transferring the brute force of the Internet into the hands of corporatist elites who will lower its volume and polish its edges. When they are done it will no longer be fit for discourse or dissent. But it will serve nicely for comfort and commerce.
The manner by which this story has been propelled by bloggers and citizen journalists should serve as a reminder that the people still have a voice. But we, the people, must not get complacent either. Events like this will surely stir the media bears, and they are still the most dangerous beast in the forest. Be vigilant and be active because, if you are not, this medium will be lost to us – like all other media before it. Think about that.
Last Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Rupert Murdoch sat on a panel where he lamented what he described as a “loss of power” due to the ascension of the Internet and other new media. The notion that this captain of one of the most dominant media conglomerates in the world is trembling in the shadow of bloggers is simply absurd. Especially when you consider the fact that his company is also a dominant player on the Internet with an aggressive acquisitiveness that includes MySpace, the world’s largest online social networking site.
But there was a more shocking exchange that took place that ought to have caused more of a stir amongst professional journalists and all freedom loving people. It was an exchange that revealed something that most conscious beings knew, but which I have never seen explicitly articulated.
Murdoch was asked if News Corp. had managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq. His answer?
“No, I don’t think so. We tried.” Asked by Rose for further comment, he said: “We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East…but we have been very critical of his execution.”
Let me repeat this: “We Tried!”
Setting aside the nonsense that they had ever been critical of Bush’s adventures in Baghdad, having confessed to being deliberatly deceitful raises some questions. For instance, how can anyone ever again take seriously Fox News or any of Murdoch’s other instruments of bias? How can News Corp. continue to pretend that they are “fair and balanced?” How can any other media company exhibit the slightest expression of respect or patronization?
And speaking of other media companies, where are they now? The Chairman and CEO of a media empire that includes the number one rated cable news network, and numerous newspapers around the world, has just admitted that he tried to use that empire to “shape the agenda” in support of a partisan political goal with consequences of life, death, and global destabilization. Why has the media, who you might think would have some interest in this subject, virtually ignored these remarks? We know they were there because, on the very same day, there was a media tempest over remarks by John Kerry on whether Bush had turned the U. S. into an international pariah. That trumped up commotion was led, of course, by Fox News. Even the Hollywood Reporter downplayed the most startling portion of Murdoch’s presentation by headlining their story: “Big media has less sway on Internet.” They apparently felt that that was a more weighty revelation than the attempted thought-control exposed by Murdoch.
Where is the outrage? Where are the calls to disband this mammoth and unlawful propaganda machine? Murdoch, who was made an American citizen by an act of Congress because, otherwise, he could not own an American television network, should have his citizenship revoked and be deported back to Australia. Think of the precedent this sets for any other wealthy and ambitious ideologue that seeks to manipulate public opinion. There are plenty of wealthy and ambitious ideologues in the Middle East and elsewhere who may view Murdoch as a role model.
At the very least, it needs to be broadcast far and wide that News Corp. and Fox News are nothing but a tool of the neo-con operatives in government. You might say we already knew that, but this is different. We are not merely accusing them of this stance, they have now admitted it. And it can not be tolerated! Not by any standard of journalistic ethics. Not by a nation that values a free press so much that it incorporated that freedom into its Constitution.
Update (8/22/07): Here’s the video:
You really have to wonder who the enemy is in the War On Terror™ when the battle is waged against innocent Americans whose only offense is a desire to publicize their cartoon show.
 The terrorist’s arsenal. |
The city of Boston screeched to a halt Wednesday because somebody felt threatened by a child’s toy that was altered to advertise the new season of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. These “improvised promotion devices” (IPDs) were scattered around the city where they surreptitiously stalked unsuspecting consumers.
The alert law enforcement authorities of Boston leapt into action to protect the citizenry. In a matter of hours they had identified 10 of the IPDs that were deployed up to two weeks earlier. They quickly moved to shut down traffic, bridges and even evacuated a hospital. Despite the fact that the guerrilla PR campaign had invaded 10 American cities, Boston was the only one to mobilize its Homeland Security forces in response to the threat.
The media played a critical role in performing its public safety duties by rushing incomplete and uninformed reports on to the air. The rapid succession of substanceless Breaking News updates may have saved countless lives by creating just the right environment for needless panic.
Once again we are reminded of the ever-present danger posed to society by artists. The free exercise of creative expression continues to be amongst the more serious threats to an ordered and manageable population. No wonder responsible governments spend so much of their time and resources suppressing such subversions. Without such efforts we would be forever vulnerable to the horrors of independent thought and action.
It’s gratifying to know that the terrorists have not won. We are still a proud and free people. Our enemies will not see us cower. Sure, they’ve seen the passage of the Patriot Act that limits long-held freedoms. They’ve seen our government listening in on our phone calls and monitoring our financial transactions. They see us lining up at airport terminals shoeless and forced to surrender our shampoo and Evian water. They see us resort to preemptive war and torture and submission to imperial, undemocratic leaders. And now they see us fearful and frantic in the presence of toys. But they will never have the satisfaction of seeing us recoil from militarism or the comforting imposition of martial law.
Mary Ann Akers reports from behind the scenes in Washington:
Sources tell The Sleuth that the Obama camp has “frozen out” Fox News reporters and producers in the wake of the network’s major screw-up in running with the erroneous Obama-the-jihadist story reported by Insight magazine.
Finally, a public figure with the sense to make Fox’s fiction factory pay a price for broadcasting fake news. If more politicians applied this model to their press relations, Fox would be forced to think twice about running with unverified hit pieces. Or else they would have to be satisfied with exclusively Republican guests and subjects (that’s not too steep a fall).
The Fox reaction is to whine about reporters who are being punished for something they had no part in. What a load of disingenuous, denial-laden hogwash. It was not just the Barbie’s and Ken’s on the Fox morning show that spewed this trash. Several of the anchors of other programs delighted in pushing it along. And none of the on-air talking heads had the journalistic integrity to acknowledge the fraud in this story. There are no innocent parties at Fox. Anyone who didn’t report the debunking of the piece is as guilty as those who fanned the flames. And they certainly won’t make any points with the use of threats, as expressed by one courageous, anonymous source at Fox:
“Obama and his staff are in for a rude awakening if they think they can write off Fox News. If a candidate is serious about running for president, he or she is going to need a network like Fox to reach out to all those voters in the red and purple states.”
Another anonymous Fox spokesperson (even their spokespersons are afraid to go on record) said in response to questions of a Fox “freeze-out”:
“If true, perhaps Mr. [Robert] Gibbs [an Obama campaign manager] should reconsider that ill-advised strategy given his candidate is trailing by 20 points in the polls.”
I’m not sure what polls Mr. [Fo]X is referring to, but most polls show Obama at the top of the pack in the Democratic primaries. He is even competitive with the top Republican candidates. So apparently Fox’s defense after having been shown to be a purveyor of lies is to manufacture more lies.
Senator Obama made the right decision. Here’s hoping others follow.
Fox News appears to be caught in a downward spiral from which there is no relief. Ratings just released comparing January 2007 with January 2006, have more bad news for the “Only Cable News Channel That Does Not Bring You The Usual Left Wing Bias.”
Jan. #’s: Total Viewers vs. Jan. 2006:
| Total day: | FNC | CNN | MSNBC | HLN | CNBC |
| Jan. 07: | 874 | 521 | 332 | 234 | 225 |
| Jan.’06: | 898 | 460 | 238 | 234 | 138 |
| % change: | -3% | +13% | +39 | 0% | +63 |
| Primetime: | FNC | CNN | MSNBC | HLN | CNBC |
| Jan. ’07: | 1,605 | 809 | 530 | 343 | 290 |
| Jan. ’06: | 1,483 | 724 | 349 | 343 | 155 |
| % change: | +8% | +12 | +52% | 0% | +87% |
Jan. #’s: 25-54 Demo vs. Jan. 2006:
| Total day: | FNC | CNN | MSNBC | HLN | CNBC |
| Jan. 07: | 262 | 186 | 138 | 98 | 95 |
| Jan. ’06: | 235 | 145 | 91 | 96 | 45 |
| % change: | +11% | +28% | +52% | +2% | +111% |
| Primetime: | FNC | CNN | MSNBC | HLN | CNBC |
| Jan. ’07: | 389 | 260 | 217 | 139 | 121 |
| Jan. ’06: | 319 | 202 | 150 | 114 | 76 |
| % change: | +22% | +29% | +45% | +22% | +59% |
In Total Viewers, Fox is, again, the only network that posted a decline. Where they showed increases, they were second only to Headline News for the smallest gain. For some perspective, it must be remembered that comparisons for Fox are much easier because they had already declined so much. Therefore, it doesn’t take much of a boost to register higher percentages. Conversely, the performance of CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC, deserve respect for achieving substantial gains even in comparison to numbers that were already improving a year ago.
Fox will undoubtedly spin the these numbers as positive in their press releases. But their behavior toward insiders is much more revealing. They recently published this trade ad slamming Anderson Cooper:
“Meet the Paris Hilton of Television News”
What the ad neglects to mention is that CNN, prior to Cooper’s tenure, was trailing Fox by 174% in the time slot. Now CNN is only behind 18%. That’s a considerable distance to make up. Fox also forgot to point out that they tried to hire Cooper a few years ago. Charlie Reina, the former Fox producer who tells the story about Fox courting Cooper, makes the astute (and hilarious) observation that:
“for Cooper, whose talents and instincts were in actual news, coming to Fox would be a huge step down professionally.”
And Reina knows what he’s talking about. It’s reminiscent of NBC’s David Shuster, another Fox alum, who said after ankling:
“…there wasn’t a tradition or track record of honoring journalistic integrity. I found some reporters at Fox would cut corners or steal information from other sources or in some cases, just make things up. Management would either look the other way or just wouldn’t care to take a closer look.”
Is it any surprise that Fox would cheerfully devour and regurgitate unverified reports, from disreputable and anonymous sources, about Barack Obama’s childhood schooling? And is it any surprise that the American people are increasingly repelled by this brand of tabloid propagandizing?
LATE BREAKING: O’Reilly did a piece on Katie Couric this evening, saying…
“When you get a 10.5 debut and you’re down to to 7.5 in six months, that’s not going in the right direction.”
He didn’t bother to admit that his own ratings have declined even more on a percentage basis (30%). One of his guests tried to slip it in, but he just plowed through it.
There is seemingly no subject on which professional know-it-all, Bill O’Reilly, does not consider himself to be an expert (and no subject on which he actually is). Last March, wearing his music biz (dunce) cap, he predicted that the Dixie Chicks’ soon-to-be-released CD, “Taking The Long Way,” was destined to fail. He said at the time that it would sell “2 million tops.”
Let’s see how he’s doing.
Taking The Long Way:
For those not in the biz, double platinum means sales of 2 million. So they have already reached what O’Reilly thought would be their peak (in just 7 months). They are assurred of blowing past that number considering that they are still on the charts and the Grammys nods will boost sales as well. If they win, all the better. Plus, they will be performing in the Grammy broadcast on February 11.
So this is proof that O’Reilly is a fraudulent moron with a talent for being wrong and embarrassing himself. Not exactly a revelation, but still…..
Update: The Dixie Chicks swept all 5 categories for which they were nominated in the Grammy Awards last night. Already on Amazon.com, the CD is #1 for Country and #2 for overall sales. Natalie Maines from one of the acceptance speeches:
“I think people are using their freedom of speech here tonight with all of these awards,” Maines said in accepting the album of the year nod. “We get the message. There’s a lot of awesome music this year and fantastic performances. I’m very humbled. I think people were using their voice the same way this loudmouth did.”
Suck on it Bill-O.
As the FCC continues to review media ownership rules, Big Media hacks persist in spreading false claims about competition and the benefits of local ownership.
Former FCC commissioner, Reed Hundt, told USA Today that the meaning of ‘media monopoly’ has changed:
“‘Media monopoly’ seems now to be about whether you can use the Internet for free or whether there’s any limit on what you can send over the Internet […] The issues of the last 10 years don’t have that much resonance anymore.”
Mr. Hundt is obviously confusing ‘media monopoly’ with ‘municipal access” and ‘network neutrality’ – a pedestrian mistake for someone with so-called credentials. He might be surprised to learn that in the real world ‘media monopoly’ still means a concentration of media companies into the hands of a few powerful conglomerates that exercise undue influence over distribution and content. And those issues still possess great resonance. In 2003, three million Americans rose up to roll back FCC regulations that would have allowed the media monopolists to grow ever larger.
We are facing that same battle today and the same voices from Big Media are telling the same lies to advance their greed. They argue that cable and the Internet neutralize the risk that any one company can dominate public opinion.
“There are more (media) outlets today than there have been at any point in the past,” says media investor Christopher Dixon of GGCP. “Every day that more people are on the Internet, the argument for cross-ownership limitations falls by the wayside.”
First of all, there are not more media outlets than ever – or at least not by any qualitative count. The actual number of radio and TV stations has remained fairly constant. The new players are in cable and the Internet. But most of the major cable networks are owned by the same corporations that have consolidated so many of the broadcast stations. It’s just nonsense to allege that the number of outlets is increasing as the number of owners is decreasing.
Secondly, it makes no sense to suggest that more people on the Internet should affect cross-ownership regs. Monopolies in media distribution are adverse to the public interest no matter how many people use the Internet. And, again, it needs to be pointed out that most of the top Internet news destinations are owned by Big Media. They think that just because I can have a web site, that I pose a competitive threat to Fox News.
I wish that were true.
One of the main reasons that the FCC is incapable of producing regulations that serve the public interest is that they define public interest as something more like corporate handouts. Rather than evaluating regulations on their ability to advance open and informed dialogue, the cornerstone of democracy, the FCC grades its proposals on whether they stimulate or stifle competition. The former method of review places value on people and communities, while the latter focuses only on financial statements.
The current procedure for evaluation is actually based on something used to measure market concentration, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. Now the Center for American Progress, with Fordham University’s Donald McGannon Communication Research Center, has developed a new “Local Media Diversity Metrics Index” that would place the emphasis on a true measure of what is in the public interest. They will be hosting an event tomorrow with Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) to introduce the new methodology. Please consider attending or notifying your representatives because it is probably going to take more than a press conference to get this FCC to adopt the proposal.
