Dead Tree Alert: Special Guest Edition

Ruport Murdoch is a right wing ideologue - always has been - always will be. This is evident in the voice of his properties the tabloid New York Post and Boston Herald and particularly the shamelessly biased Fox News who by loudly shouting down those who don't agree effectively silence reasonable debate about the important issues of our day. His attempted acquisition of the Wall Street Journal a business publication with a conservative editorial slant will only bring more of the same. His assertions to the contrary are as ridiculous as they are disingenuous.

"Brit Hume plays it absolutely straight" is all the evidence you need to know that Murdoch is a wingnut.

Then there is this....

"But he has a stubborn populist streak, and his populism finds an outlet on Fox News, a channel that gives voice to angry middle-aged white guys. "

Is Pooley an idiot? "Angry white guys" as they appear on Faux aren't populists in any way shape or form. Populism is the politics of inclusion and tolerance -- the "angry white guys" on Fox are about exclusion and intolerance.

Jim, thanks for linking to my story. p_lukasiak, you have a point - - that sentence of mine could certainly have been sharper. As I indicate elsewhere in the piece, Murdoch likes to portray himself as an outsider -- an overgrown little guy -- even though he is of course the very definiton of a powerful insider. What I was trying to say is the sentence you cite is that Fox News strikes a populist pose in the same way Murdoch does. Viewers can draw their own conclusions about whether it is genuine, but the pose is certainly defender-of-the-little-guy.

Eric

"Viewers can draw their own conclusions about whether it is genuine, but the pose is certainly defender-of-the-little-guy."

precisely, it is a pose. Because the "little guy" who is being represented by people like O'Reilly is the resentful and angry white male -- and he's "defending" them NOT against the rich and powerful, but against people with even less money and power. That is simply not populism -- and IMHO its wrong to allow it to be presented as populism. You're the reporter --- report, dammit!

And while I have your attention

Is there some kind of rule against profile writers calling "bullsh*t" on statements made by the profile subject? This kind of story screamed for (at least) a sidebar examining the overwhelming politic bias of FauxNews (and his other media outlets) --- "viewers can draw their own conclusions" doesn't cut it, and the assumption is that people WILL take the time to investigate whether Murdoch is full of it, and you just were doing a fluff piece on Murdoch that would have been more appropriate in People rather than Time...

There was a UCLA study of political bias in the media a year ago or so (http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664). I won't reproduce the whole methodology here, but it boiled down to how many liberal vs conservative sources (think tanks, etc) made it into the media's pieces, based on their ADA ratings.

The results aren't all that surprising. Fox skews right, but not as much as CNN skews left. TIME magazine and newspaper editorials skew a bit farther left. Drudge Report actually skewed slightly left of center (probably due to the militant social libertarian bent).

Brit Hume is obviously right-leaning. Wolf Blitzer tries his best to hide his contempt for Republicans, but he is obviously left-leaning. Bottom line -- who cares? Nine out of 10 reporters in a recent sample (sorry, don't know enough about the methodology to critique it) donated to Democrats, but I'm smart enough to analyze the facts for myself. Also, it's important to keep in mind the difference between commentators and reporters. Fox News has a lot of loud right-wing mouthpieces, but many of them are commentators. The real money lies in examining the "straight-news" segments.

It's possible (though not very likely) that Murdochs embrace of hard right positions in his media outlets may be less a reflection of his opinions and more him simply exploiting a well known market niche. Hard right leaning talk radio existed long before Fox News did and it's entirely possible that there was a built in audience for a news network that panders to that audience given how much they love to complain about what they see as a "liberal bias" in other media (I don't see it, but whatever).

Whatever else Murdoch might be, he is a buisiness man first. Find a large pre-existing audience that feels they don't get represented in other media and tell them what they want to hear. It's like printing money!

"There was a UCLA study of political bias in the media a year ago or so (http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664). I won't reproduce the whole methodology here,"

good, because this study is so laughably flawed that its ridiculous. And here is a clue... the professors were both right wingers who had been on wingnut welfare...

"... the authors have previously received funding from the three premier conservative think tanks in the United States: the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), The Heritage Foundation, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Groseclose was a Hoover Institution 2000-2001 national fellow; Milyo, according to his CV (pdf), received a $40,500 grant from AEI; and, according to The Philanthropy Roundtable, Groseclose and Milyo were named by Heritage as Salvatori fellows in 1997."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200512220003

As for methodology,,,,well, according to the study, the RAND Corporation is liberal, and the ACLU is conservative. And the Center for Responsive Politics -- a group that makes capaign contribution data available on the web -- is considered "highly liberal" --- thus when a media outlet references CRP for DATA on campaign contributions, it has a "liberal" agenda. It doesn't matter if the candidate whose contributions are being looked at is liberal or conservative -- the use of DATA from CRP makes the media outlet more "liberal".

p_lukasiak: You shouldn't pick on that poor journalist Eric Pooley. He is only doing the bidding of his corporate bosses which is to not offend the advertisers and keep the stock price high. Not to make it personal, but Time used to be a great magazine its still quite informative but when it comes to the tough issues like challengeing the rational for the Iraq invasion or the consequences of all media being owned by giant capitalist conglomerates like News Corporation - they won't bite the had that feeds them. I understand their plight but its not really journalism (journalism's calling is to challenge entrenched interests and question accepted wisdom.) Do you agree? This article is well written almost entertaining writing but avoids the issue. For a real look at challenging conventional wisdom check out the Media Education Foundation's webcite: mediaeducation.org. Its the begining of the end of a democracy when its media will no longer stand up to vested interests I think everybody knows this but its still very troubling Right? Steve C.