Keeping Rupert Murdoch at bay
By Steve Benen Thursday Jun 28, 2007 8:01pmYesterday, Wall Street Journal reporters from across the country staged a surprising walk-out to protest Rupert Murdoch’s impending takeover of the newspaper. After seeing some of the comments Murdoch made to Time’s Eric Pooley, it’s hardly a mystery why WSJ professionals are worried.
“CNN is pretty consistently on the left, if you look at their choice of stories, what they play up. It’s not what they say. It’s what they highlight.” (CNN, which is also owned by Time Warner, hotly disputes this charge.) Then he mumbles conspiratorially, “And if you look at our general news, do we put on things which favor the right rather than the left? I don’t know.” Has Murdoch just said what I think he said? Has he flirted with an admission that Fox News skews right? If so, he quickly backs away. “We don’t think we do. We’ve always insisted we don’t. I don’t think we do. Aw, it’s subjective. Neither side admits it.”
Murdoch is usually more careful than this. “Neither side admits” what, exactly? Murdoch didn’t say. Then again, he didn’t have to.
In the meantime, Bill Moyers is weighing in on the pending sale: “Rupert Murdoch has told the Bancrofts he’ll not meddle with reporting. But he’s accustomed to using journalism as a personal spittoon,” Moyers says. “His worst offense with Fox News is not even its baldly partisan agenda. Far worse is the travesty he’s made of its journalism."
Paul Krugman is weighing in, too. This may seem like a business story regarding one major corporation dealing with a different major corporation. The stakes are higher than that.
John Amato: Let's not forget that Murdoch already admitted manipulating the news in Davos...
We already have a right wing media in the WSJ. If Murdoch takes it over, haow can we expect anything honest to be published?
he won't meddle with the structure of wsj any more that he didn't mess with the la times. another rightwingnut neocon fascist LIAR.
The walkout is good news, but I'm still worried. The WSJ editorial board is delusional hackdom, but the news division overall has been consistently excellent. There are very few independently-owned papers left in the U.S., at least with large resources to do original investigative reporting. Murdoch has never been hands-off. Haven't these folks seen Outfoxed, or at least the hundred-some news stories on Murdoch's business style?
I read the WSJ 2-3 times a week. Not any more if the deal is made.
This Rupert needs a smackdown!
Money will buy that smear more control and power. PPL some or most it seems in this world just do not care about anything but money. Folks are becoming more and more content with the meager scrapes of food tossed to them via the ubber rich and think they are bathing in wealth , when in reality,, its a cess pool.
I hope it bites em in the arse , later on down the line too.
Oh and new eagle pics are up on my blog too. for nature lovers world wide :)
And I'll just bore everyone with my usual Murdoch post. He's fundraising for Hillary, he expects favours like THAT to be politically repaid (Pro-Murdoch legislation; King's X exceptions to the rules; citizenship) and see this Frontline from 1995: Who's Afraid of Rupert Murdoch? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts/1404.html
Sadly, Mr. Murdoch is a well known liar and sociopath. So quoting what he says isn't really of any value.
I don't really CARE if Murdoch or any other WINGNUT wants to have a "News" (and I use that in the loosest of terms) program or even a complete channel which reports or opines from a RightWing perspective...BUT what infuriates me is the constant LYING that goes on.
They constantly and consistantly Lie and the ignorant masses swallow their BS.
Fox News is more about propaganda and straight out B@#$%t than tryng to balance any perceived "Left" "Right" new coverage.
All of the Wingnuts, from That smirking fool George W Bush to "Satan's right hand man", the V.P. Dick Cheney, all the way down to the clowns who support, and vote for them are delusional Liars.
Oops...
My comment above has a false email link in it.
It came up because I used symbols instead of letters to write a curse word.
The NYT is a much better business and financial paper than the WSJ. And the LAT is even better. Too bad, the NYT is collapsing under Pinch.
Actually, the Investors Business Daily is a better financial paper, with more savvy analysis and better charts, and New America issues that the WSJ.
The idea that CNN leans left is ridiculous.
Apparently a news organization featuring conservatives whose occasional op eds DON'T pander to Bush on all fronts qualifies you as being "Liberal" these daze.Go figure.
Oh, what a nonsense. The WSJ is a rubbish paper and it is difficult to imagine Uncle Deeppockets moving it any more to the right. It is already at the extreme end of the spectrum.
This is a distraction not worthy of notice.
Rupert Murdoch is John Randolph Hearst in spades. And I don't care what assurances he gives the WSJ, they are fools if they believe him. But a lot of money can make people do very foolish things, and they will always be able to mumble that they TRIED to protect the WSJ, but it won't matter.
Rupert Murdoch is a liar. A greedy grasping covetous old sinner who will do and say anything to get what he wants.
And when he turns the WSJ into a rag, I will be around to remind the Bancroft family that selling their paper to Murdoch was the same as selling their mother to a whore house.
http://www.washingtonlife.com/issues/june-2006/media_spotlight/images/me...
On the whole, I am not too thrilled with the WSJ to start with. In my little foray into investing, I discovered that most of its articles are plants used to sway opinion to save failing stocks.
Is it my imagination or are all the rightwingnuts like Murdoch are of a certain age and generation? This would make it impossible for them to understand the 21st century, much less the 20th.
justaguy @ 13:
Well, except that Murdoch gets more powerful with each big purchase. He has to have laws adjusted so he can own more and more 'news' distributing agencies. And he's pretty much set the tone for distracting infotainment bullshit. I don't care if it's rubbish or not. The guy is a sham citizen and we don't need any more of his shit. Or laws tailor-made for him.
If money is the driver for the family to sell out to Murdoch, it is just another example of how out of touch with reality the rich are with what is happening in this world. They obviously don't need the money. They just want to be one of the "have mores."
the wsj is an everyday icon in the business world, because it has established trust with an intelligent readership. rupert just bought the paper, but he hasn't bought that trust. someone else should buy up the staff, and start a new paper. the readership is smart enough to follow. hopefully, when this happens, the editorial section will improve.
miss_kitty @ 17:
Fair point, but in my view, there are more important issues than going after individuals. It is sham personality politics, fly paper. A far right wing scandalous zionist lie sheet being taken over a far rightwing zionist won't change much.
Changing the system is more important. When the NYT is considered a left wing paper by a lot of Americans, you have a serious problem. From my point of view the NYT is a far right wing prozionist promonopoly capital rag. There is no range of views in the US. It is far right to extreme right only.
The Bancrofts could checkmate Rupert Murdoch by simply putting in a clause that if he meddles with the news, he forfeits ownership and ownership reverts back to the Bancrofts with no money back to Murdoch. Of course Murdoch would never agree, and would argue that his word should be good enough, that he is a gentleman, and all the other pithy arguments.
Truth is, he should not be trusted with anything where his word is involved. He will lie, cheat, manipulate and throw any semblance of ethics out the window for his goals.
Murdoch buys up the "news" business and puts on a bunch of talking heads that report lies and, if they're not reporting lies, they're spinning the truth so we all interpret it "correctly". The infotainment that covers all celebrities all the time keeps everyone sedated and consumed with figuring out how they can buy the cosmetics, clothes, linens, cars the celebs use. Thus we become excellent consumers of things we can't afford and that only benefits big business. He uses politics and politicians then distracts everyone from what he's doing with the pretty shiny things.
Anyone ever see the movie, "Amazing Grace and Chuck"?
Keeping Rupert Murdoch at bay
Yesterday, Wall Street Journal reporters from across the country staged a surprising walk-out to protest Rupert Murdoch’s impending takeover of the newspaper. After seeing some of the comments Murdoch made to Time’s Eric Pooley, it’s hardly a mys...
Wait, I thought the whole value system of that company is to embrace monopolies. Aren't they being hypocritical by flipping off Murdoch while endorsing the illegal war?
Rupert Murdoch is a piece of fascist slime. However, let's take a look at the Bancrofts. Their hereditary greed and completely amoral support of anything that makes money is beneath contempt. I think they're a perfect match.
Murdoch says he won't meddle in the reporting. But he will hire people who will do it for him.
Murdoch is funny. CNN is liberal when they feature the odious twit Glen Beck on prime time? For a guy who wants to control all information, he seems rather ill informed. But, self satisfied billionaires don't have much incentive to think much do they? I'm sure that he has many yes men and suck ups telling him he is a genius.
Murdoch has the same problem that many wealthy folks have. Rupert thinks that since he amassed his fortune that he must be smarter than anyone else, and wants to help us mere mortals by sharing his insights.
I call it the Henry Ford syndrome. People who make great fortunes have one thing in common. Dumb luck. Bill Gates, for all his business moxie, couldn't have created Microsoft a year earlier or later. The stars aligned or something.
Murdoch is rich, but a crooked dummy. The WSJ will be ruined forever if he touches it.
This is just the unfettered capitalism that the WSJ has always advocated in action; how can they complain when they become victims, too?
CNN is WORSE then Fox because CNN pretends to be neutral and credible. If CNN is liberal why the deafening silence on these critical stories??? Is it because Bushco. has told them not to report on any of them? You can bet if any of these stories hurt Democrats they'd of gotten UNLIMITED coverage on CNN.
1) Downing Street Memos 2) Media Ownership (deregulation) 3) Disappearance of Habeas Corpus 4) Fairness Doctrine no longer enforced 5) Freedom of Information Act ratcheted up 6) Bush family close relationship with Bin Ladins 7) Bush family close relationship with the recently departed Ken Lay (Enron) 8) The strategic importance of running that oil pipieline thru Afghanistan 9) Congress working to draft legislation to strangle internet (net neutrality) 10) American embassy built in Iraq $600 million size of 80 football fields 11) All the old Iran-Contra players currently working for Bushco 12) The illegal manner which the medicare prescription bill was passed that's allowed drug companies to set prices and make record revenues 13) Journalists intentionally targeted in Iraq 14) The danger posed by a 9 trillion dollar national debt 15) The danger posed by unregulated hedge funds 16) Why labor gets almost no TV time and management dominates the airwaves 17) Oil executives secretly meeting to write our energy policy especially Iraq (Cheney's secret energy papers) (fascism) 18) Bankers allowed to write bankruptcy bill (fascism)
20) Voting Integrity (this has gotten minor play in media recently)
21) Purging of minorities from voter rolls..see GregPalast.com for info that’ll make u sick! 22) Depleted Uranium from the hundreds of thousands of shell casings in Iraq 23) Delay and Abramoff running sweat shops/prison camps in Marinas Islands and forcing young Chinese girls into prostitution then abortions 24) Gay reporter Jeff Gannon sleeping over at White House multiple times (100+?) then setting up Talon News and being allowed at WH Press Briefings. 25) Sibel Edmonds being silenced and what she knows about 9/11, Denny Hastert and illegal arms sales. 26) Bill Frist sneaking legislation into a Defense bill to protect big Pharma from lawsuits. 27) Choicepoint collecting data on you perhaps even your DNA.
28) Why White House is now hiding all visitor logs (400 Abramoff visits?)
29) Zero Reporting on all the 500+ Executive Orders Bush signed.
30) Exxon Mobil spends $19 million dollars on 75 front groups to create uncertainty over global warming.
31) Private Right Wing Army Blackwater with fundraising ties to Bush operating almost secretly in Iraq.
32) Posse Comitos Rescinded
33) Food Genetically Altered, Not Labeled, No Testing ever done on humans.
34) Profit Sharing Law being pushed thru Iraqi Parliment giving 70% of oil profits to multinational oil co.'s for 30 years
35) Bush Executive order Hides Presidential Papers (Regan, Bush 41, Clinton) that should be released to Public.
36) Questions about Building 7 WTC imploding
37) Phone companies tapping lines illegally prior to 9/11
38) Our beef is now cloned and no safety testing done and its not labeled
39) Presidential Directive NSPD51 giving Bush dictatorial powers in event of ANY emergency he deems worthy.
40) Karl Rove's Caging Lists stealing vote of millions of minorities including black soliders in Iraq
41) Dick Cheney hiding his visitor logs perhaps destroying them in violation of law.
42) A Newsweek poll from Oct 06 showed 51% of Americans favor impeachment (29% Republicans)!
43) -- The president has been declared a felon in federal court. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled last August that President Bush and the National Security Agency were committing serial Class A felonies and were violating both the First and Fourth Amendments by spying on Americans' communications without first obtaining warrants
44) 15 Democratic Party state organizations have passed impeachment resolutions calling on Democrats in Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president and vice president.
45) There is evidence that Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, was a patron of the Washington Madam whose client book of high-class call-girls is causing many in Washington political circles to sweat.
46) Among the "worst of the worst" of the "evildoers" captured and held as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo were children, some of them preteens and kids who were under 15 when captured.
47) Karl Rove has had his security clearance renewed. Karl Rove has admitted that he publicly disclosed Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA officer. Under guidelines issued by President Bush in 2005, the “deliberate or negligent disclosure” of classified information can be a “disqualifying” condition to receive security clearance.
48) 700,000 Iraqis killed since start of war
Where is Ted Turner when you need him? Where are the moderate millionaires ? Can't they band their fortunes together to wrest the WSJ from Murdoch's clutches? Is there no decency left in journalism that even the Times is a snark target? This buyout of the last independent paper is the death knell of truth in reportage. Neocons are already on the WSJ board. It won't be long before the beast is fed.
this cannot happen. We're losing every day -- there will be no ethics in journalism left. We are democracy!
Look at the election of 2004 -- my belief (besides possible Ohio malfeasence) is that the media is responsible for this travesty.
I get so outraged. When will it stop? And it all goes back to Reagan... when will this country wake up to the fact that out of control capitalism isn't necessarily a good thing?
Someone on the radio (I think the Diane Rehm show this past Wednesday) was talking about how Rupert doesn't explicitly tell people what to report, but will do things like send them clippings from the WSJ editorial page, indicating that this is the kind of thing he wants to see in something like the NY Post. He apparently LOVES the WSJ editorial page.
Around The Sphere June 30, 2007
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(CNN, which is also owned by Time Warner, hotly disputes this charge.)
I'd hotly debate this claim too. Anyone with two brain cells who has ever seen Fox with Facts at any point during the past 5-10 years knows that it skews right.
Pathetically, it keeps on jonezin' after Faux's audience as if they don't KNOW they're being lied to and Fox with Facts will be right there for them, giving them all the right wing skew they need with real journalism as soon as they realize Faux dupes them.
Joke's on CNN, of course. They won't ever get Faux's audience until they start deliberately lying about the news to make the right wing look good. Lou Dobbs got them on the right footing with that bogus leprosy claim and all.
On News Corps' purchase of WSJ:
I'm thinking Rupe realizes that he won't be able to count on the other financial wire services continuing to deal with his proposed Fox Financial News Network after they consistently lie about financial stats. It seems to me that he needs to control a data gathering source to feed Faux's new venture after services like Pearson decline the subscription.
I'm also thinkin' that Rupe wants to control a source of financial news that feeds CNBC. He can only get wannabes to his Faux Financial News Network, not really any financial service industry watchers/participants. If he wants to call CNBC "commie" and "anti-business", he'll need to control a source of financial news that he can have lie about the facts. The contrast of what the "Wall Street Journal" reports and what CNBC reports will give Faux's Financial Network its fodder to tell the well UN-invested how "pro-business" they are in comparison.
Let's hope that NBC isn't AS idiotic as CNN proved to be and take its dominant financial news channel down the tubes of falsity just to prove it's "pro-business" to individuals who never watched financial news to begin with.
Or Bloomberg can just try to stay on track and let CNBC undo itself chasing a false tail.
MSM (the "4th estate") in the US should ONLY be owned by CITIZENS of the US.
Force Murdoch to divest!!!
Impeach Bu$h CO!
[...] STOCK MARKET GOING DOWN MAKES PARIS HILTON FROWN could be a future headline at the Wall Street Journal soon. It looks like Rupert Murdoch is going to be the new owner after all. (What page of the paper will Bill O’Reilly’s column run on??). The controversy over the impending sale continues — which included a walk out by WSJ reporters. [...]
[...] STOCK MARKET GOING DOWN MAKES PARIS HILTON FROWN could be a future headline at the Wall Street Journal soon. It looks like Rupert Murdoch is going to be the new owner after all. (What page of the paper will Bill O’Reilly’s column run on??). The controversy over the impending sale continues — which included a walk out by WSJ reporters. [...]