“Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.”

seafan

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Wed Aug-03-11 08:42 PM
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“Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.”

That was from David Frum, former Bush speechwriter, last year.

This is but one of the revelations in Frank Rich's new piece at New York Magazine. He talks about his years at the NY Post, where he was offered a job in 1975, when Rupert Murdoch was on the verge of buying the Post.

Rich tells the inside stories of those years at the tabloid. A must read piece.

Murdoch Hacked Us Too

By Frank Rich
July 31, 2011

.....

The real transgressions of the Murdoch empire are not its outr้ partisanship, its tabloid sleaze, its Washington lobbying, or even what liberals most love to hate, the bogus “fair and balanced” propaganda masquerading as journalism at Fox News. In fact, these misdemeanors are red herrings—distractions from the real News Corp. corruption that now threatens to bring down its management and radically reconfigure and reduce its international corporate footprint. The bigger story is this: An otherwise archetypal media colossus, with apolitical TV shows (American Idol), movies (Avatar), and cable channels (FX) like any other, is controlled by a family (and its tight coterie of made men and women, exemplified by the recently departed Rebekah Brooks) that countenances the intimidation and silencing of politicians, regulators, competitors, journalists, and even ordinary citizens to maximize its profits and power and to punish perceived corporate, political, and personal enemies. And, as we now know conclusively, some of this behavior has broken the law.

.....

News Corp. bullying has inflicted real damage on America no less than on Enญgland. And as the British were in denial concerning the severity of Murdoch’s impact until the Guardian uncovered the Milly Dowler story, so America still is in denial. We’ve become so inured to Murdoch tactics over the years—and so many people in public life have been frightened, silenced, co-opted, or even seduced by them—that we have minimized his impact exactly the way his publicists hoped we would, downgrading News Corp. misbehavior merely to tabloid vulgarity and right-wing attack-dog politics. But there’s a real difference between the tabloidization of ญAmerica—which is, and no doubt always will be, ญunstoppable—and the Murdochization of America, which still might be stopped.

.....

Fox News is far from the only American division of News Corp. to be pressed into service, checkbook in hand, when Murdoch’s interests—financial at least as much as ideological—are at stake. One classic example occurred in 1995, after the Federal Communications Commission questioned whether Murdoch had misled it in 1985, when News Corp., then based in Australia, secured Fox broadcast licenses despite a federal law limiting foreign ownership of local stations to 25 percent. The matter died soon after the News Corp. book division HarperCollins offered the then–Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, a $4.5 million advance. True to form, Murdoch claimed to have no idea that the book deal was ever in the works—even though he conceded having met with Gingrich just a few weeks earlier to discuss the FCC inquiry. (The ensuing ruckus shamed Gingrich into forgoing the advance.)

.....

The most important first step down this road will be for Americans to fully recognize that what happened at News of the World was no isolated virus but part of a larger culture that didn’t remain quarantined on the other side of the ocean. Once that realization sinks in, it can only hasten the day when the long national nightmare of the Murdochization of America, now well into its fourth decade, will be over.
.....

Bravo, Mr. Rich.

We are actively working for the arrival of that day.