Juan Cole: Is Murdoch’s Media Empire a Cult?

[seafan]

Is Murdoch’s Media Empire a Cult?

By Juan Cole
July 13, 2011

The scandals besetting billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s British properties simply cannot be ignored in the United States. Murdoch owns a newspaper of record, the Wall Street Journal, and his Fox Cable News dominates US television news and opinion with regard to cable (and it has a global reach despite its supposed American-nativist emphases). He also owns the Weekly Standard, which has carried numerous attacks attempting to smear American thinkers and politicians, including attacks on my integrity (I’ve also occasionally been dissed by name at Fox Cable News; you’d think they’d go after bigger fish). The Weekly Standard was used to help promote the Iraq War, absurdly tried to tie secular dictator Saddam Hussein to Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, and promotes militarism in general. One senator, John Rockefeller, is calling for an investigation of whether Murdoch’s media properties have broken any laws here.

Murdoch’s acquisition of the venerable old News of the World, founded in the Victorian England of Charles Dickens, proved fatal for the newspaper. Under his ownership some of its editors and journalists went rogue, hacking into the telephone messages of some 4,000 persons in search of personal dirt.

.....

It seems increasingly likely that the techniques of bullying, coercion, spying, and the politics of personal destruction common at the News of the World were not limited to this one piece of the Murdoch media empire. Even short of hacking, Murdoch’s properties often behave like cults, not news organizations. We have known for a long time that Fox Cable News instructs reporters on how to spin the news and promotes fascist demagogues in the evening magazine shows. Fox also has a history of ambushing its guests and disrupting their lives. Bill O’Reilly has had liberal bloggers, including one young woman, followed around and more or less stalked. Keith Olbermann maintains that Fox essentially blackmailed him into accepting a much reduced salary when he reported to his bosses that he was suffering from strained health. It has been noted that despite the obviously unprofessional practices within NewsCorp media, there are never tell-all books by former employees, and columnist Jason Easely wonders if it is because Murdoch has such a fearsome reputation for playing hardball.

Under the old Fairness Doctrine abolished by Ronald Reagan in the mid-1980s, Fox “News” would have had its license pulled by the Federal Communications Commission. But the FCC is now toothless, and American mass media are vulnerable to the vicious techniques of cultist Murdoch, who attempts to use his media empire to push world politics to the far right.

.....

And that is The Grand Plan.




Reagan expedited citizenship through Congress for Murdoch. All part of the big picture.

With Reagan's help, Murdoch became a US citizen in 1985 to hide Aussie legal/financial problems



This relentless, 30+-year vicious right wing assault on the very fabric of America portends a bleak and desperate future for us.


But, only if we do not act.




(emphasis added)

[Kingofalldems]

1. Seems like it--I was accused of trying to censor Fox news

for suggesting a return of the Fairness Doctrine.

[gratuitous]

2. Oh, Mr. Cole!

Of course the Murdoch scandals can be ignored in the United States. Take a quick poll on any street, and ask folks why the United States was attacked on September 11. I guarantee you that the overwhelming majority if people will say it was because of our freedom. The American public is misinformed, misled, lied to and bamboozled in a variety of ways every day, and the more pleasing the lie, the better it sells. I've met peasants in the boonies of Chiapas, Mexico who were better informed about what's going on than your standard American. If the problems Mr. Murdoch has brought on himself are deemed too controversial or too inconvenient, the public will surely ignore them. In fact, by Labor Day, I predict that Murdoch could very well be the hapless victim of a foreign government's vendetta against him. At least, that's what the teevee machine will tell us.

[bobthedrummer]

3. ^

[Kaleko]

4. Thanks for the kick. I would have missed this OP otherwise.

I contend that not just Murdoch's organization but the entire Republican Party resembles a cult.