Fox News

Fox News almost destroyed journalism in this country.

But journalists fought back.

If it continues it may yet destroy our democracy.

Will we have the courage to fight back?

Rupert Murdoch may be trying to buy CNN.

Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Courtesy of The Independent:  

Rupert Murdoch is said to be interested in buying CNN – which, if true, could prove to be an interesting development given Mr Murdoch's reported close association with Donald Trump, who has repeatedly railed against the network. 

The news comes after reports saying Mr Trump's administration may force AT&T to ditch the network to receive antitrust approval of its $85.4bn deal with Time Warner. 

According to Reuters, Mr Murdoch called AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson twice in the last six months and talked about CNN. 

One of the outlet's sources said Mr Murdoch offered to buy CNN in both conversations, while another source said the 86-year-old executive chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox had "zero interest" in owning the network. 

It would not be the first time Mr Murdoch has expressed interest in taking over CNN.

Donald Trump fucking hates CNN, so if Murdoch could neuter the cable news network that would give him quite a lot of control over Trump's presidency.

Probably almost enough to rival Vladimir Putin's control over the Trump presidency. 

However if this purchase were to happen, and Murdoch turned CNN into Fox-lite, it would quickly start to lose viewers at an accelerated clip.

Of course CNN going out of business would probably not break Trump's heart either.

This is why I will never have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

The Journal, a New York-based institution more than a century old, remains one of the nation’s most-read newspapers, with the power to move markets and shape political agendas. Like the Financial Times in London, it’s long been the must-read for the business and financial class – with a business-friendly conservative editorial page to match – known for its deeply-reported stories and calm design.

Dozens of reporters, editors, and copy staff have left the paper in the past year, an exodus attributable to a combination of buyout incentives, poaching and frustration with management at the title which Rupert Murdoch added to his media empire a decade ago. 

The talented staff that remain still produce memorable journalism. But when it comes to covering Trump – according to interviews with 18 current and former Journal staffers, some of whom have provided the Guardian with previously unpublished emails from Baker (Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief Gerry Baker ) – many say this is no thanks to management. 

“The Journal has done a lot of good work in covering the Trump administration, but not nearly as much as it should have,” another recent departee said. “I lay almost all of that at Gerry’s doorstep. Political editors and reporters find themselves either directly stymied by Gerry’s interference or shave the edges off their stories in advance to try to please him (and, by extension, Murdoch).” 

Meanwhile longtime observers like Sarah Ellison, a former Journal reporter and author of the book War at the Wall Street Journal about Murdoch’s takeover of the paper, is not entirely surprised to see what has happened to Murdoch’s paper under Trump. 

“This is the most access he has had to a sitting president ever – that is something he’s tried to do and has done in other countries particularly with British prime ministers,” Ellison said. “He’s choosing his own personal access over having any journalistic clout.”

For most of my career (?) as a blogger I have avoided paying for subscriptions, because to be frank I really cannot afford to pay money to every news outlet I enjoy on the internet.

However after Trump was elected I realized just how important it was to really start to financially support the news media in this country.

So I purchased two subscriptions, one to the Washington Post and one to the New York Times.

And clearly that is money well spent because they have been at the forefront of some of the best reporting to be found on the Russia investigations, the White House drama, and the Donald Trump's insane presidency.

I also contribute in other ways by clicking ads on sites I visit frequently, watching cable news (Including the commercials.), and sending all of you to less well known news outlets which I think are deserving of our attention.

However I will not, EVER, support any news outlet like Fox News, Breitbart, and now the Wall Street Journal, which attempts to either support or give a free pass to Donald Trump.

We are in a war, and these should be identified as the propaganda outlets for the enemy.

Fox News pulled off the air in Britain. They could not find an audience dumb enough to watch apparently.

Courtesy of CNN:

Rupert Murdoch and his sons are pulling Fox News off the air in Britain. The network's parent company, 21st Century Fox, has announced that the controversial news channel will no longer be broadcast in the U.K. after failing to attract an audience. 

The network has also become a lightning rod for critics seeking to spoil the Murdochs' planned $15 billion takeover of Sky, the top pay TV provider in the U.K. 

"Fox News is focused on the U.S. market and designed for a U.S. audience and, accordingly, it averages only a few thousand viewers across the day in the U.K.," 21st Century Fox said in a statement. 

"We have concluded that it is not in our commercial interest to continue providing Fox News in the U.K.," it added.

Yes a cable news station designed to attract the most ignorant viewers in the country, fill their empty heads with lies and conspiracy theories, and then send them to the polls to vote for the most corrupt politicians imaginable.

Apparently that is a model which does not work outside of America.

Gee lucky us.

So I guess Britain will not have to deal with shit like this.

Watch Jesse Watters get duped by the fake shark photo on national television pic.twitter.com/sbDLuavvzS

— Eric Koch (@EricDKoch) August 29, 2017

This, this is why we have Donald Trump.

New information confirms that Donald Trump begged Prime Minister May to make the press behave before he would agree to visit England.

"So when do you think the British press will like me?" "How do you say 'never' in Trump-speak?"

Courtesy of The Sun: 

The US President made his shameless plea in a private conversation with Theresa May to plan his state visit — now postponed until next year. 

A transcript of the chat, seen by senior diplomats, reveals his touchiness. 

Mr Trump says: “I haven’t had great coverage out there lately, Theresa.” 

She replies awkwardly: “Well, you know what the British press are like.” 

He replies: “I still want to come, but I’m in no rush. 

“So, if you can fix it for me, it would make things a lot easier. 

“When I know I’m going to get a better reception, I’ll come and not before.”

A source said: “He seemed to think the PM would be able to smooth the path for him to get a warm welcome. 

“But she tried to explain she has no power to dictate how newspapers and media might decide to cover his visit. 

“After all, we are not North Korea.

“He said he would not agree a date until people support him coming.”

Apparently Downing Street refused comment for this story. 

Which of course means it's true.

Remember when we first heard about this back in June?

At the time it was refuted as "fake news."

Does not appear to be so fake now does it?

Remind me again Right Wingers, who's the "snowflake?"

P.S. Isn't The Sun owned by Rupert Murdoch?

Make no mistake, Greta Van Susteren did not quit her job at Fox News, she was fired.

WTF's happening?

Courtesy of CNN Money: 

A courier arrived at Van Susteren's Washington, D.C. home at 9 a.m. Tuesday, hand-delivering two letters that said that Van Susteren "was being taken off the air" immediately, according to her husband, John Coale, who is a high-profile Washington lawyer. 

Van Susteren was already planning to leave, but she thought she would be hosting her 7 p.m. program "On the Record" for a few more weeks. 

Yanking her off the air without a chance to say goodbye was "a bit immature," Coale remarked. 

It was also a message from Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch, the patriarch of Fox's parent company 21st Century Fox, disliked her recent attempt to renegotiate her contract, and the unusual courier visit was a result of that, said one of the sources interviewed for this story. 

The messy breakup is the latest sign of tension -- "chaos," according to Coale -- behind the scenes at Fox News.

Apparently Greta's attempt to renegotiate her contract pissed Murdoch off. Big time.

Get this:

The network announced her departure less than an hour after the courier arrived. Van Susteren was not quoted in the press release. 

Fox then deleted the "On the Record" web site, Van Susteren's biography, and her pioneering Gretawire blog -- essentially erasing her from FoxNews.com.

Ouch!

Van Susteren then went on Facebook to try and spin the story:

Last Thursday night, I made my decision and informed Fox News of my decision at that time that I was leaving Fox News Channel per my contract. 

Fox has not felt like home to me for a few years and I took advantage of the clause in my contract which allows me to leave now. The clause had a time limitation, meaning I could not wait.

Yeah, that's all bullshit. 

Five new things we just learned about the Roger Ailes sexual harassment case.

So yesterday New York Magazine did a deep dive into the Roger Ailes/Fox News sex scandal.

I read through most of it and was planning to write about it today.

However Talking Points Memo just offered a summary which hits the main points that I was planning to cover so let's follow their lead.

Number one:  

Gretchen Carlson secretly recorded alleged instances of Ailes' sexual harassment 

Sherman’s report confirmed speculation that former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who is suing Ailes for sexual harassment and retaliation, possesses taped recordings of Ailes’ alleged advances that back her suit, which opened the floodgates for the Fox News boss’ eventual downfall.

Apparently Carlson took her I-Phone in with her when she met wtih Ailes in his office and hit "record" when he started acting like a frat boy on Spring Break, and the rest is history. Just like his career at Fox News.

I saw the author of the New York Magazine piece being interviewed yesterday and when asked if the tapes had been played for Ailes and his attorneys, he said that they had been a central part of the case, so yes.

I'm not going to lie this made me seriously reconsider my former dislike for Gretchen Carlson.

She's a bad ass!

Number two:

Fox News allegedly hacked journalists’ phone records 

As Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper empire was embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal, Fox News allegedly employed “legally questionable means” to obtain a U.S. journalist’s phone records.

Okay now I have been waiting to hear evidence that Fox News was hacking people here in American ever since Rupert Murdoch's  News of the World was busted for that back in 2011.

To me that sounded EXACTLY like something that Ailes would do, and once it was confirmed that Rupert Murdoch's papers did it in Britain, I knew that it was only a matter of time before we learned for certain that it was happening here as well.

Number three:

Megyn Kelly reportedly rallied Fox women to speak to investigators 

As Sherman tells it, fired Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson’s lawsuit provided an opening for the network's star anchor. Ailes was no longer lending Kelly his support and she was in the midst of ongoing contract negotiations. When Kelly alleged to James Murdoch that Ailes had once made harassing comments and hugged her inappropriately in his office, Murdoch reportedly urged her to speak to the investigators at the law firm Paul, Weiss, which is conducting an internal probe into the Ailes allegations. 

Kelly was the third or fourth woman to speak with investigators, an anonymous source briefed on the investigation told Sherman. After her interview, she reportedly called up current and former Fox staffers to encourage them to speak with the lawyers, and many more women came forward.

Damn! SO now I have to reconsider my dislike for Megyn Kelly too?

Number four: 

Real fears of a Trump TV network are reportedly swirling at Fox 

Although there’s been wide speculation that Donald Trump’s 2016 endgame may be to break into cable news with a conservative network that would rival Fox News, anonymous network insiders talked about Trump TV as a near-certainty that was casting a pall over the network’s future. 

The current top talent and leadership will only last through Election Day, one unnamed host told Sherman. 

“As of November 9, there will be a bloodbath at Fox,” the host said. “After the election, the prime-time lineup could be eviscerated. O’Reilly’s been talking about retirement. Megyn could go to another network. And Hannity will go to Trump TV.”

Okay that's it.

If Fox News is actually worried about competition from Trump TV, then it virtually confirms that it is likely a real thing.

So Donald Trump's entire campaign is essentially a coming attractions trailer for his soon to be launched cable news network.

God Republicans are dumb!

Roger Ailes is officially out at Fox News!

Courtesy of TPM:

Roger Ailes, who built Fox News into a cable news powerhouse, resigned Thursday amid swirling allegations of sexual harassment. 

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch will be chairman and CEO of Fox News and Fox Business after Ailes' resignation, which a press release from parent company 21st Century Fox announced was effective today. 

“Roger Ailes has made a remarkable contribution to our company and our country. Roger shared my vision of a great and independent television organization and executed it brilliantly over 20 great years," Murdoch said in a statement. 

In announcing the news, the statement makes no mention of the allegations around Ailes, but praised his role in founding the network and making it a hub for millions of conservative viewers.

Speaking of those unmentioned allegations, it appears that they are still coming.

Lawyer for former Fox anchor Laurie Dhue says she's in process of writing a book that will "candidly discuss" her interactions with Ailes

— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) July 21, 2016

It needs to be pointed out that Ailes was all but escorted from the Fox News building on the same day that Donald Trump accepted the nomination as the Republican candidate for President.

That is a HUGE thing to have happen.

Not only does Fox News spread the GOP's propaganda for them, Roger Ailes, for all intents and purposes, has shaped the Republican party into his own image.

With him gone it now falls to Rupert Murdoch to continue that legacy.

However Rupert Murdoch is 85 years old. And his children, who will take over completely when he passes, are nowhere near as politically conservative as either he or Ailes.

So the questions that needs to be asked is, how long will Fox News continue to be Fox News. And how can the Republican party survive without it?

Lawyers for Gretchen Carlson accuse Roger Ailes of "judge shopping," as Rupert family argues about when to fire his fat ass.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Lawyers for fired Fox News host Gretchen Carlson accused network chief Roger Ailes of “illegal and inappropriate judge shopping” in a court brief filed Friday in response to Ailes’ trying to force Carlson’s sexual harassment lawsuit into secret arbitration. 

Ailes’ attorneys filed a motion on Friday seeking to move the lawsuit to federal court in Manhattan and push the suit, which details explosive allegations of retaliation and harassment against Ailes, into closed door arbitration, citing a provision of her contract with the network. 

But Carlson’s attorneys countered that Carlson’s contract was with Fox News, not Ailes. They argued the CEO therefore cannot benefit from the strict arbitration clause and the case should proceed in public. 

Ailes, the only defendant named in Carlson’s suit, was not mentioned in and did not sign her contract, the attorneys said.

In other news it appears that Rupert Murdoch and his children are arguing, not about whether they should fire Roger Ailes, but rather when they should fire Roger Ailes.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

Roger Ailes's tenure as the head of Fox News may be coming to an end. Rupert Murdoch and sons Lachlan and James — co-chairmen and CEO, respectively, of parent company 21st Century Fox — have settled on removing the 76-year-old executive, say two sources briefed on a sexual-harassment investigation of Ailes being conducted by New York law firm Paul, Weiss. After reviewing the initial findings of the probe, James Murdoch is said to be arguing that Ailes should be presented with a choice this week to resign or face being fired. Lachlan is more aligned with their father, who thinks that no action should be taken until after the GOP convention this week. Another source confirms that all three are in agreement that Ailes needs to go. 

You know of all of the ways that I imagined Roger Ailes might eventually leave Fox News, in handcuffs after being indicted for treason, on a gurney after being shot by an angry viewer, in a body bag after his heart explodes from seeing just one too many blonde in a short skirt, I think that being fired for being a lecherous old POS might be my favorite.

I have this terrible vision of them cleaning out his desk and finding thumb drives just filled with upskirt videos of the women working at Fox News, an over used penis pump, and a semen stained autograph picture of Richard Nixon.

Insiders say that Rupert Murdoch is easing Roger Ailes out at Fox News. Is that kind of like they eased Sarah Palin out?

Courtesy of New York Magazine:

According to four high-placed Fox sources, Murdoch is upping his presence at Fox while Ailes has become less visible to anchors and producers, signaling a shift that marks a new chapter in the network’s history. The most visible change is that, since June, Murdoch has been attending Ailes’s daily executive meeting held on the second floor of Fox headquarters. The secretive afternoon gathering in Ailes’s conference room is attended by about a half-dozen of the network’s most senior lieutenants. It’s where some of the most sensitive decisions about running the channel are discussed. 

Meanwhile, Fox hosts and producers tell me Ailes has been a somewhat diminished force at the network. In 2014, he took an extended leave of absence after a health scare. He still has trouble walking and rarely ventures out of his executive suite. A friend who ran into Ailes in Palm Beach over the holidays remarked that he was using a walker. “He seems detached and removed,” one Fox personality tells me. “He’s not around as much,” says another friend of Ailes. “He doesn’t have as many meetings with talent.” 

What this means politically is that during this year’s fractious Republican primary, Fox isn’t functioning like the disciplined campaign it’s historically been. “There's no directive on anything,” one anchor told me. “There used to be directives on everything, and now there's not, which is kind of nice.” By far, the clearest sign of this leadership vacuum is the network’s erratic handling of Trump in the wake of his feud with Megyn Kelly. “There is no Trump strategy,” the source explained.

Well isn't that interesting?

The article goes on to say that Murdoch is no fan of Trump or Cruz and has been pushing the cable channel to be more hostile towards them while attempting talk up the more establishment candidates like Marco Rubio.

Personally I think that the best thing that could happen to Fox News right now would be for Hillary to win the election.

Let's face it NOTHING brings the conservatives together quite like bashing a Clinton.

Update: Oops I forgot to mention that the best thing that could happen to the country is for Fox News to go out of existence altogether. Which, considering how quickly their audience is dying out, might not be completely out of the question. 

Rupert Murdoch: Only "proven Christian" refugees should be allowed into America.

Source

So how does one decide who is a "proven Christian?"

Do you tear up a Koran in front of the refugees and the ones that don't cringe are allowed to come into the country?

Or perhaps it's like testing witches where you throw them into the water weighted down with rocks, and the ones that float we know are Muslims, and the others....well they're just dead.

Of course where Fox News goes, the Republicans are sure to follow. Which is partially why we are now seeing over two dozen Republican governors (And one Democratic one.) saying that they will refuse to accept any refugees from Syria.

Though I am sure that they, much like Murdoch, would immediately change their minds just so long as they could PROVE they were good little Christian refugees.

Somebody might need to remind Murdoch, and the Republicans, that in America the vast number of terrorist attacks are NOT attributed to Muslims, but rather to those who would most likely self identify as Christians.

James Carville calls out both Trey Gowdy and the Benghazi Committee as creations of the Koch brothers.

Carville: "I got an idea for somebody in the media. Why don't you see if this is true, that Trey Gowdy is a creation of the Koch brothers, and the whole crime of denial industry. And this committee is nothing but a creation of Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brother. You know Fox ran over one thousand segments in twenty months after this thing."

I think we all know that Carville is big supporter of the Clintons, and just about as partisan as they come.

However he just issued a challenge to the media to prove him wrong, let's see if they take him up on it.

I think we all suspect what they will find.

In other news top Democrats are now calling for Republicans to reimburse the tax payer money that they wasted on this most recent "investigation."

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Top Senate Democrats want to shut down the House Benghazi committee amid allegations it seeks to attack Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. And they want Republicans to reimburse taxpayers for the committee's more than $4.5 million cost. 

The senators, including Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), accused the GOP Wednesday of "operating a political opposition machine against Secretary Clinton," and called the House Select Committee on Benghazi's use of taxpayer funds "wholly inappropriate." 

"Over the past several weeks, several House Republicans have made clear what many observers have suspected all along: that the Select Committee has conducted a political inquisition aimed at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton," the senators wrote in a letter to Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus. 

"We firmly believe the Committee should be disbanded, and that every penny of taxpayer money that has financed this purely political committee ought to be repaid," the letter continued.

Hear, hear!

Tomorrow Clinton steps into the lions' den essentially wearing fang proof armor.

Not only should that be a show well worth watching I think it might also be the Benghazi committee's last hurrah.

(H/T to Democratic Underground.)

Is Roger Ailes on his way out at Fox News? Maybe.

Well fuck.

So as many of you probably know Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as the CEO of his empire, and leaving his son James in charge.

What you may NOT know is that James Murdoch, as well as his brother Lachlan Murdoch, have a VERY contentious relationship with Ailes.

Here is more courtesy of New York magazine: 

Yesterday, 21st Century Fox announced that Ailes would be reporting to Lachlan and James Murdoch. For Ailes, it was a stinging smack-down and effectively a demotion. 

Just five days earlier, Ailes released what now appears to be a rogue statement to his own Fox Business channel declaring that he would be unaffected by the announcement that Lachlan and James will take control of Fox as part of Rupert's succession plan. "Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch," Fox Business reported. According to a well-placed source, Ailes directed Fox Business executive Bill Shine to tell anchor Stuart Varney to read the statement on air. "Ailes told Shine to write the announcement of the move for Varney to say," the source said. "In it, Ailes inserted language that he would report to Rupert." 

This was, apparently, news to Rupert. And now the Murdochs are correcting the record. "Roger will report to Lachlan and James," a 21st Century Fox spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. 

What makes the reversal most remarkable is that, until now, Rupert always backed Ailes during his messy feuds with Murdoch's children. Ailes's tangles with Lachlan were legion. Not long after 9/11, Rupert gave Ailes a new contract after Ailes threatened to resign following a heated argument with Lachlan in the Fox newsroom. Four years later, Lachlan quit his job as deputy COO in charge of the Fox broadcast group after Rupert supported Ailes in a dispute over a TV show that Ailes wanted and Lachlan didn't.

The article goes on to say that James Murdoch is an environmentalist whose wife worked for the Clinton Foundation, and that Ailes has been heard repeatedly referring to James as a "fucking dope" and "Fredo."

So this could be it for Ailes.

Can you even imagine what Fox News would look like without Roger Ailes?

You know if I were Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly I might start sending my resume out.

Of course I the only thing I know for sure is that I am going to need some more popcorn. 

Former policy adviser to Ronald Reagan releases study that finds that Fox News is hurting Republicans and making conservative voters dumber.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

The study, authored by Bruce Bartlett, who worked in the Treasury Department under George H. W. Bush and was also a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan, found that Fox viewers tended to be less informed about current affairs than people who watch mainstream news -- and even people who don't watch the news at all. 

"Republican voters get so much of their news from Fox, which cheerleads whatever their candidates are doing or saying, that they suffer from wishful thinking and fail to see that they may not be doing as well as they imagine, or that their ideas are not connecting outside the narrow party base," Bartlett said. 

Citing a host of other studies, Bartlett found that Fox News viewers tended to have misguided beliefs about the Iraq War, the Affordable Care Act and other major issues. He also noted that Fox's audience tended to hold a bias against Muslims. 

"It appears that right-wing bias, including inaccurate reporting, became commonplace on Fox," Bartlett said.

The article goes on to say that this is especially concerning because "many conservatives now refuse to even listen to any news or opinion not vetted through Fox, and to believe whatever appears on it as the gospel truth." 

That means that any opinions which disagree with Fox or conservative talk radio are considered biased, and not worth their time.

Talking Points Memo had this to say about this study: 

Since Fox founder and chairman Roger Ailes opened shop in 1996, the effects of the powerhouse conservative channel on the media landscape have been widely noted. Bartlett, a onetime advisor to Rep. Ron Paul and President Ronald Reagan and official in the administration George H.W. Bush, cites several studies showing how Fox broke into an untapped market for a single conservative news source after years of FCC regulations which required equal time for political debate (the so-called "fairness doctrine" ended in 1987 under President Reagan.) 

But Barlett also surfaced studies which show that that the Fox Effect changed not only Americans' media diet, but their political behavior as well — boosting turnout for the GOP and pushing both Republicans and Democrats rightward in Congress.

Of course we have talked about this numerous times here at IM. 

Roger Ailes, who was an aide for Richard Nixon, was convinced that the media did not treat his President fairly and he believed it was due to a liberal bias. (It wasn't. The news back then simply reported the facts. And as we know, facts by their very nature have a liberal bias.)

So in 1996 Ailes, with the backing of Rupert Murdoch, decided to broadcast the news with a conservative bent and the rest is the stuff of journalist's nightmares.

Now our country is torn apart by ideological arguments, our politics are at a virtual standstill, and billionaires now openly purchase their own candidates and finance their campaigns.

Personally I think Roger Ailes is guilty of treason and should be tried for the crimes of selling the Iraq War to the American people, interfering with the Al Gore's election to the presidency in 2000, and undermining American journalism.

Here is how the Daily Show presenting 50 Fox News lies in 6 seconds.

"Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism" is now available online. If you haven't seen it...well there is really no excuse for having never seen it.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

The film charts the rise of Fox News, outlining the marketing-based techniques that make the channel such “compelling” viewing — the “Fox News Alert,” the blurring of journalism and commentary, and the deceptive use of the chyron, i.e. the lower third of the viewing area on a typical television screen. 

In addition to that, the film also reviews Fox New’s coverage both of the 2000 presidential election and the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, demonstrating how the network successfully established the talking points used by those in the so-called “liberal media.”

Personally I have watched this documentary about three times now.

Typically I have to watch it incrementally because I get so pissed off I want to pick Sean Hannity up by his ankles and beat Roger Ailes to death with him.

Can I just say that even I underestimated the Right Wing vitriol Chelsea Clinton's baby would attract?

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:  

The NY Post is Rupert Murdoch's signature right wing rag in New York and it often is as offensive as many of the pundits that appear on Fox News. Today's front page is no different as it openly attacks Chelsea Clinton's new born baby. 

In their Page Six celebrity gossip section, they posted a normal story of the birth, but somehow that didn't translate into the front page we are seeing.Their hatred and fear of Hillary Clinton now extends to new born babies.

Wow! Seriously all I have to say is Wow!

Former Australian politician Bob Carr LOVES Fox News, but not for the reason you might imagine.

Courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald:  

Recently departed Labor foreign minister Bob Carr, a close student of American politics, has declared himself "delighted" with Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel. 

Not, however, for the normal reasons that a person might support the predominantly right-leaning US cable channel, owned by Rupert Murdoch. 

"I am delighted because it is a textbook experiment in how to make the Republican Party unelectable," Mr Carr told the Public Knowledge forum on Monday, an event hosted by Sydney University's US Studies Centre. 

"If you are running as a candidate for the Republicans, you must do Fox News and you must pander to the table thumpers. By the time the general election comes around the candidate is too right wing to get elected. I think it is delightful," he said. 

I can't say I agree with all of Carr's political viewpoints, but on THIS we are in 100% agreement.

And considering that Rupert Murdoch got his start in Australia this guy would certainly know what he is talking about.

Author of book about Rupert Murdoch reveals that Fox News used fake accounts to leave comments on blogs to counter bad press or plant pro-Fox propaganda. Gee, really?

Courtesy of Media Matters:

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik writes in his forthcoming book Murdoch's World that Fox News' public relations staffers used an elaborate series of dummy accounts to fill the comments sections of critical blog posts with pro-Fox arguments. 

In a chapter focusing on how Fox utilized its notoriously ruthless public relations department in the mid-to-late 00's, Folkenflik reports that Fox's PR staffers would "post pro-Fox rants" in the comments sections of "negative and even neutral" blog posts written about the network. According to Folkenflik, the staffers used various tactics to cover their tracks, including setting up wireless broadband connections that "could not be traced back" to the network. 

A former staffer told Folkenflik that they had personally used "one hundred" fake accounts to plant Fox-friendly commentary: 

"On the blogs, the fight was particularly fierce. Fox PR staffers were expected to counter not just negative and even neutral blog postings but the anti-Fox comments beneath them. One former staffer recalled using twenty different aliases to post pro-Fox rants. Another had one hundred. Several employees had to acquire a cell phone thumb drive to provide a wireless broadband connection that could not be traced back to a Fox News or News Corp account. Another used an AOL dial-up connection, even in the age of widespread broadband access, on the rationale it would be harder to pinpoint its origins. Old laptops were distributed for these cyber operations. Even blogs with minor followings were reviewed to ensure no claim went unchecked." [Murdoch's World, pg. 67] 

In the book's endnotes, Folkenflik explains that "four former Fox News employees told me of these practices." It's unclear whether these tactics are ongoing. 

As the owner of a liberal blog let me help with that question. Yes they are still using those tactics.

So for all of you who wondered if you were being paranoid in thinking that there were people paid to come here and defend Sarah Palin, nope you weren't.

This is the ad that Rupert Murdoch does NOT want you to see on Australian TV. So I am definitely showing it here!

Courtesy of Get Up:  

This election campaign, News Corp has used the front pages of its tabloids to launch aggressive political campaigns against one side of politics, while failing to scrutinise the other. 

That's why we created this ad. We want to call News Corp's campaign out for what it it: biased crap. We want to show there is a movement of Australians who aren't going to stand idly by while one man tries to tell an entire nation how to vote. 

Together, GetUp members raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a massive ad buy, standing up to News Corp on millions of TV screens across the country. 

So why aren't you seeing the ad on tv? 

Turns out, not everyone is as keen to stand up to a billionaire media mogul as we are. 

After GetUp members chipped in money to put this on air we immediately made bookings. 

Channel 10 said outright on the phone that they wouldn't run the ad because it criticises another media outlet. Lachlan Murdoch is on the company's board. We're sure the two are totally unrelated. 
Channel 7 refused the ad because "the creative execution was considered distasteful and potentially offensive to our audience, so we have decided to make a stand." So noble. We created a new version of the ad with the 'offensive' bits blurred out. They didn't respond. 
Channel 9 at least approved the ad, and ran it for four days. In fact, 615,800 people have already seen it on 9 across Brisbane. On Monday, they pulled the ad, and blamed it on a "coding error," saying it never should have run. Whoopsadaisey. 

That's all three of Australia's major commercial networks banding together to suppress media criticism. What's more, it's happening in an election period where Australians ought to have the freedom to express their opinions and to criticise and speak truth to power.

You know if Murdoch ever gets enough power he will do the same thing here.  Luckily for us he only has a few newspapers and Fox News, while in Australia he owns between 23% to 33% of the newspapers.

So I feel a certain amount of solidarity with my Australian neighbors when it comes to Murdoch and Newscorp.

How conservatives destroyed journalistic integrity in America.

This is part of an excerpt from “Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America” courtesy of Salon:

 One key factor that has altered campaign coverage comes from the corporate right in the form of “conservative” media. If there has been a vacuum created by the downsizing of newsrooms, conservative media have filled it with an insistent partisanship unseen in commercial news media for nearly a century. The conservative media program has been a cornerstone of the Dollarocracy’s — the big money and corporate media election complex — political program since at least Lewis Powell’s 1971 memo. Initially, the work was largely about criticizing the news media for being unfair to conservative Republicans and having a liberal Democratic bias. Although the actual research to support these claims was, to be generous, thin—one major book edited by Brent Bozell actually claimed corporations such as General Electric were “liberal” companies with an interest in anti-business journalism because they had made small donations to groups like the NAACP and the Audubon Society—the point was not to win academic arguments. The point of bashing the “liberal media,” as Republican National Committee chairman Rich Bond conceded in 1992, was to “work the refs” like a basketball coach does so that “maybe the ref will cut you a little slack” on the next play. 

The ultimate aim of Dollarocracy was, as James Brian McPherson put it, “to destroy the professionalism that has defined journalism since the mid-twentieth century.” The core problem was that professional journalism, to the extent it allowed editors and reporters some autonomy from the political and commercial values of owners, opened space for the legitimate presentation of news and perspectives beyond the range preferred by conservatives. That professional journalism basically conveyed the debates and consensus of official sources and remained steadfastly within the ideological range of the leadership of the two main political parties—it never was sympathetic to the political left—was of no concern. It still gave coverage to policy positions on issues such as unions, public education, civil rights, progressive taxation, social security, and the environment that were thoroughly mainstream but anathema to the right. Key to moving the political center of gravity to the right was getting the news media on the train, and that meant getting them to have a worldview more decidedly sympathetic to the needs of society’s owners. Newt Gingrich was blunt when he told media owners in 1995 that they needed to crack the whip on their newsrooms and have the news support the corporation’s politics. “Get your children to behave,” he demanded in a private meeting with media CEOs. 

In the late 1990s, Rupert Murdoch launched the Fox News cable channel, and because television is such a ubiquitous and powerful medium, that put right-wing news media in the center of the mainstream. Michael Wolff characterized Fox News as “the ultimate Murdoch product,” because it brought tabloid journalism to American television. What has been missed in the analysis of Fox News is the business model of tabloid journalism: dispense with actual reporting, which costs a lot of money to do well, and replace it with far less expensive pontificating that will attract audiences. For a tabloid news channel, that means the value added is a colorful partisan take on the news; otherwise the channel has no reason to attract viewers. Former CNN head Rick Kaplan told the story of how he was confronted by Time Warner executives in 1999 or 2000 who were dissatisfied with CNN’s profits despite what had been record revenues and a solid return. “But Fox News made just as much profit,” Kaplan was informed, “and did so with just half the revenues of CNN, because it does not carry so many reporters on its staff.” The message to Kaplan was clear: close bureaus and fire reporters, lots of them. In short, Fox News is the logical business product for an era where corporations deem journalism an unprofitable undertaking. 

Fox News and the conservative media sector (including the conservative blogosphere) provide a “self-protective enclave” for conservatives to cocoon themselves. Research demonstrates that the more a person consumes conservative media, the more likely she is to dismiss any news or arguments that contradict the conservative position as liberal propaganda and lies. Tom Frank argued that the point of conservative media is to facilitate a “deliberate cognitive withdrawal from the shared world” by their adherents. Conservative media also, to a remarkable extent, stay on message, and the message is largely that of the Republican Party; these media, at least Fox News and Limbaugh, seem to march in lockstep with the same talking points, the same issues, and even the same terminology deployed across the board. They apply the core principles of advertising and propaganda.

There of course never WAS a "Left wing media," only a media that presented all sides of an issue and did so factually, And since a fair exposure of the Right Wing agenda rarely looked appetizing to the American people that simply could not be allowed to continue.  

The rabid partisanship which is currently ripping our nation asunder can be traced back to the initial conversation between Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch that ultimately resulted in the birth of Fox News.

Benedict Arnold had NOTHING on those two.