Murdoch used our lax media regulation, formed Fox News to take our country to the right.

[madfloridian]

The Australian born Rupert Murdoch started Fox News in 1996. I wonder if that date is coincidental with the 1996 Telecommunications bill passed that year with Bill Clinton's signature. It's stated purpose:

Stated objective

Its stated objective was to open up markets to competition by removing regulatory barriers to entry: The conference report refers to the bill “to provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced services and information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition....” <2> Congress attempted to create a regulatory framework for the transition from primarily monopoly provision to competitive provision of telecommunications services.

Telecommunications Act of 1996

So many seem to be in denial that the present atmosphere of violence is political. It has become that way largely because of Fox News and its way of creating stories that are half-truths or have no basis in truth and all..and trumpeting them out to the country. So many have been trained that it is a good thing to say they only watch Fox, no other news station.

Murdoch with Fox News and the other media he owns like The Weekly Standard and the New York Post has certainly succeeded in getting across his very right wing views. Here is more on that from an article from the Center for America Progress in 2003. It is worth reading all of it.

Who is Rupert Murdoch?

Consider Murdoch's empire: According to Businessweek, "his satellites deliver TV programs in five continents, all but dominating Britain, Italy, and wide swaths of Asia and the Middle East. He publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country...His cable channels include fast-growing Fox News, and 19 regional sports channels. In all, as many as one in five American homes at any given time will be tuned into a show News Corp. either produced or delivered.As this report shows, he is a far-right partisan who has used his empire explicitly to pull American political debate to the right. He is also an enabler of the oppressive tactics employed by dictatorial regimes, and a man who admits to having hidden money in tax havens. In short, there more to Rupert Murdoch than meets the eye.

I remember so well in the early 2000s when Fox News was pushing so hard for the invasion of Iraq. Their ratings were so high that CNN and MSNBC decided that was really what the public wanted, so they tried to be just like Fox. There was no network calling out for wiser decision making. It was all about ratings.

MURDOCH THE WAR MONGER: Just after the Iraq invasion, the New York Times reported, "The war has illuminated anew the exceptional power in the hands of Murdoch, 72, the chairman of News Corp… In the last several months, the editorial policies of almost all his English-language news organizations have hewn very closely to Murdoch's own stridently hawkish political views, making his voice among the loudest in the Anglophone world in the international debate over the American-led war with Iraq." The Guardian reported before the war Murdoch gave "his full backing to war, praising George Bush as acting 'morally' and 'correctly' and describing Tony Blair as 'full of guts'" for his support of the war. Murdoch said just before the war, "We can't back down now – I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly."(New York Times, 4/9/03; Guardian, 2/12/03)

He is famous for almost having sued the creator of The Simpsons, even though they appear on Fox Entertainment.

MURDOCH THE INTIMIDATOR: According to Agence France-Press, "Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of 'The Simpsons' over a parody of the channel's right-wing political stance…In an interview this week with National Public Radio, Matt Groening recalled how the news channel had considered legal action, despite the fact that 'The Simpsons' is broadcast on sister network, Fox Entertainment. ccording to Groening, Fox took exception took (to) a Simpsons' version of the Fox News rolling news ticker which parodied the channel's anti-Democrat stance with headlines like 'Do Democrats Cause Cancer?'" (Source: Agence France-Press, 10/29/03)

I followed some of the links and found some interesting things. Like the time that he was going to sue Al Franken over his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Why? Because Franken subtitled his book A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.

As if to drive the point home, in August of 2003, Fox brought suit against the humorist Al Franken and his publisher, EP Dutton/Penguin, for allegedly infringing on Fox's three-word trademark. The offense? Franken's book, Liars and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (which attacked Fox), was subtitled "A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." However, when Fox appealed for a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin refused the request – adding that he found Fox's lawsuit to be "wholly without merit, both factually and legally." The judge also said that Fox's right to such a trademark was not very strong, suggesting that, if challenged, it might well be revoked. "From a legal point of view," said Judge Chin, "I think it is highly unlikely that the phrase 'fair and balanced' is a valid trademark. I can't accept that that phrase can be plucked out of the marketplace of ideas and slogans." A few days later, instead of proceeding to trial – as was its right – Fox abruptly decided to drop its lawsuit against Franken. There was no follow up to Judge Chin's suggestion. So Fox was able to retain its trademark registration – and the right to continue using it to mischaracterize its news product as "Fair and Balanced." But perhaps not for very much longer.

Fox News: Unfair and Unbalanced

A 1998 article from the Columbia Journalism Review talked about Murdoch's Mean Machine.

How Rupert uses his vast media power to help himself and hammer his foes

During the regimes of Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major in Britain, Murdoch ventures -- especially his purchase of newspapers and the launch of his BSkyB service -- were repeatedly favored with easing of regulations and with government failure to invoke monopoly oversight. Murdoch's papers, in turn, played a central role in bolstering Thatcher's career and virulently attacked her opponents. Thatcher's memoirs, for which she is believed to have accepted at least $3 million, were published by HarperCollins. John Major, too, is believed to have accepted a seven-figure advance from Murdoch. Now there is talk that a coalition of other publishing companies should jointly outbid Murdoch for Prime Minister Tony Blair's future memoirs, in an effort to blunt News Corp.'s influence with the Laborite, which is already strong.

In the United States, Murdoch's percentage of media ownership is lower (except for television) than in England and Australia, but his influence and reach are growing quickly. His U.S. properties include Twentieth Century Fox, HarperCollins, TV Guide, the New York Post, Fox Broadcasting, Fox News Channel, Fox Sports Net, The Weekly Standard, and television stations in New York (WNYW), Washington (WTTG), Los Angeles (KTTV), Philadelphia (WTXF), Chicago (WFLD), Atlanta (WAGA), Boston (WFXT), Phoenix (KSAZ), and fourteen other cities.(List is from 1998, am not sure if ownership still the same.)

"His company has grown so rapidly I'm not sure people have stopped to look at how he got where he is," says Washington Post staff writer Paul Farhi. Late last year, the Washington Post front-paged Farhi's examination of possible accounting sleight of hand by News Corp. The article explored ways the company, which is run chiefly from Los Angeles and New York but calls Australia its corporate headquarters, is able to use that country's arcane accounting methods to turn a potential net loss of $155 million (under tough U.S. standards) into a gain of $561 million -- thereby enabling acquisition binges. Ironically, while putting the best face on its financial fortunes, News Corp. has been able to keep its worldwide corporate tax rates surprisingly low (roughly one-fifth those paid by Disney, Time Warner, and Viacom), largely by shifting income through an almost unfathomable web to low-tax and no-tax havens in places as far-flung as the Cayman Islands, Fiji, and even Cuba. Virtually no other media organizations followed up on this story.

Murdoch made an interesting comment in the Guardian in 2003, and it pretty much sums up the reason for the invasion of Iraq.

"Who knows what the future holds? I have a pretty optimistic medium and long-term view but things are going to be pretty sticky until we get Iraq behind us. But once it's behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else," he told Fortune.

Iraq and the Media

Cheaper oil indeed...a pipe dream. He has had an influence on our country, and his Fox News still stirs up the right wing in unhealthy ways.

Too much of the anger and violence in this country today has truly come from the right wing media and talkers. If we deny it, we can not change it.

[sadbear]

1. So it WAS Bill Clinton's fault after all?

[1776Forever]

5. Check this out from 1995......

Clinton gives Murdoch a $63m break
FROM JOHN CARLIN in Washington
Friday, 7 April 1995

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/clinton-gives-murdoch-a-63m-break-1614561.html

President Bill Clinton reluctantly did Rupert Murdoch a favour yesterday when he said he would sign into law a bill containing a sub-clause that grants the media mogul a tax break said to be worth $63m (£39m).

Mr Clinton had received a letter signed by 146 Democratic congressmen on Wednesday urging him to veto the bill, allowing Congress to pass a new measure without the concession to Mr Murdoch. He declined because he believed the broad benefits of the bill were more important to the American public than denying Mr Murdoch his windfall.

The bill, will provide health insurance tax benefits to 3.2 million self-employed people: it also eliminates tax breaks for companies that sell broadcasting stations to buyers belonging to racial minorities. This was where Mr Murdoch came in....

As Mr Clinton disapprovingly remarked yesterday: "This bill carves out a special exception for one pending deal. This is the kind of dealing that goes on all the time in Washington." A line had been inserted in the bill providing Mr Murdoch with a special exemption allowing him to sell Fox TV's WATL station to a black-owned business.



(More at link)

[madfloridian]

10. "Clinton gives Murdoch a $63m break"

And we are paying for that today. :-(

[Lorien]

9. Actually, it was Reagan's fault. He knew what he was doing when he repealed

the Fairness Doctrine. Clinton just aided the right by making their takeover complete.

[SnakeEyes]

20. Fairness Doctrine had nothing to do with cable TV

only the public airwaves.

And Reagan's advisers actually was against it, fearing the only thing protecting him from the worst of the big three networks was the Fairness Doctrine.

[upi402]

12. Rupert supported Hillary for Pres

wonder why...

[DeSwiss]

16. Here's why.....

[RKP5637]

2. It all feels like part of a very well orchestrated plan and Americans are

asleep at the wheel as usual, and the rest have their heads in the sand or up their butts. This is an easily manipulated and propagandized country. Too many Americans fall blindly for RW talking points, talk with others who got fed the same talking points and then conclude the absolute truth with lack of validation except in their own sandbox.

[madfloridian]

11. Yes. "an easily manipulated and propagandized country"

True statement.

[creon]

26. True.

Americans are easily manipulated and propagandized.

The USA, also, has a lot of 'unfinished business' which aids the manipulation and propa ganda.

[onenote]

3. the language you quote refers to the 1996 Act's policies regarding telephony

There were a variety of factors that fueled the growth of Fox News Channel. One was that Fox offered cable operators a significant "launch" fee to begin carrying the channel. Another is that Time Warner Cable, one of the largest cable operators, merged with Turner, the owner of CNN, in 1996 and the Justice Department (or FTC, I can't remember which) pushed for a consent decree under which TWC was required to add another non-affiliated news service to its channel lineups.

The 1996 Act also rate deregulated the expanded cable tier effective in 1999, a move that also encouraged operators to add new channels (and programmers to invest in creating new channels).

[aquart]

4. Always wanted to know how much GHW Bush charged him for his citizenship.

[democracy1st]

6. K & R great post Mad!

[madfloridian]

19. Question about your link to Media Matters.

Is that in the signature part? I would like to link to them and a couple of others at times, never was sure if I had to post the link each time or what.

[democracy1st]

21. yes part of the sig ---edit profile ,sig

[glinda]

7. K & R n/t

[madfloridian]

8. Murdoch the corporate tax evader

"MURDOCH THE CORPORATE TAX EVADER: The BBC reported that "Mr. Murdoch's die-hard loyalty to the tax loophole has drawn wide criticism" after a report found that in the four years prior to June 30, 1998, "Murdoch's News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only $325 million in corporate taxes worldwide. That translates as 6% of the $5.4 billion consolidated pre-tax profits for the same period…By comparison another multi-national media empire, Disney, paid 31%. The corporate tax rates for the three main countries in which News Corp. operates - Australia, the United States and the UK - are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively. Further research reveals that Mr. Murdoch's main British holding company, News Corp. Investments, has paid no net corporation tax within these shores over the past 11 years. This is despite accumulated pre-tax profits of nearly $3 billion." (Source: BBC, 3/25/99)"

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/07/b122948.html

[madfloridian]

13. From Think Again: Fox propaganda rolls on. From 2010

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/12/ta121610.html

"This week, we learned of yet another propaganda-driven order from on high. Politico reports that Sammon sent an email to staff last December insisting that everyone at the station refrain from recognizing the global scientific consensus on man-made global warming.

Sammon wrote, “We should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.”

Sammon based his argument on the so-called “Climategate controversy,” which, as Politico helpfully explains, “refers to the hacking of e-mails at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit showing American and British researchers discussing how to combat climate skeptics, strategizing about whether certain data should be released and at one point calling climate change skeptics ‘idiots.’ The affair was held up as evidence by climate change skeptics that climate scientists had conspired to make the case for human involvement in global warming stronger than it actually was.”

Sammon is once again relying on a political strategy mapped out by Luntz years ago. Back in 2002, Luntz told Republicans that if American “voters believe there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community,” political action to address would remain stalled in Congress. To effect their strategy, the climate deniers needed to embrace a tactic employed for decades by tobacco companies by funding and publicizing their own “studies” and research institutes."

Luntz again.

[madfloridian]

14. Forgot to mention his purchase of the WSJ...interesting article.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/08/rupert_great.html

"How does Rupert Murdoch get away with it every time? Despite his storied history as a destroyer of journalistic standards, he has still managed to step in and buy The Wall Street Journal, where he will inevitably begin to suborn its journalistic credibility.

Let’s look at the deal itself. Questions are already being raised about conflict of interest after Murdoch’s company agreed to pay Dow Jones’ lawyers and bankers to the tune of $30 million. The New York Times asked: “By paying the bankers and lawyers for the family, did the News Corporation essentially buy off the advisers and, more important, did the family receive unconflicted guidance or was it pushed to do the deal by high-priced Wall Street advisers who stood to make far more if a deal was consummated?”

Do you even need to ask?

It wasn’t a surprise, either, when the paper’s reactionary editorial board applauded the deal with the right-wing mogul, going so far as to warn readers that the board set up to protect the paper’s editorial independence was more or less a charade. They noted, “readers also shouldn’t misinterpret the ‘editorial independence’ agreement between Mr. Murdoch and the Bancrofts. This isn’t intended to be some heat shield protecting Journal editors from their new owner. We know enough about capitalism to know that there is no separating ownership and control.” And boy, do these guys know about capitalism. In other news, Murdoch has already pledged a $2.5 million donation to a foundation run by a member of the impartial board."

[felix_numinous]

15. K&R

[DeSwiss]

17. K&R n/t

[defendandprotect]

18. Monopoly is the problem -- and our Congress is so bought by corporate/elites that

the last thing on their minds is protecting citizens or democracy --

looking at the wallets in Congress, the first thing on their minds is

how to be millionaires and multi-millionaires and aiding and abeting

those who want more legislation to fill their wallets even fuller!

[JDPriestly]

22. The strange thing is that Fox viewers tend to be very anti-immigrant

(although many of them are immigrants), however, from what I have read, neither of the two top shareholders in Fox were born in the U.S. -- neither Murdoch nor Prince Alaweed. How much of their time do they even live in the U.S.? Now that would be interesting to find out.

[newtothegame]

23. I don't WANT regulated media. I don't want 1984. nt

[dem mba]

24. I guess you've never heard of Lee Atwater

politics was a nasty business WAY before Fox News my friend.

Murdoch saw a gap in the media marketplace, and filled it. If he didn't do it, someone else would have. It's truly just that simple.

[madfloridian]

25. Yes, I know who Lee Atwater is. Boogie Man....the one before Rove.

I don't think we are making the same point. Yes politics has been destructive, but Atwater, Rove, et al have carried it to new levels.

But having an Australian set his sites on our country in such a shameless way seems just plain wrong. And having a Democratic president give him a 63 million dollar tax break is even more so.

It did not have to be this way. This should be a two-party country in which at least of the parties stands for things.

[ProSense]

27. Fox was launched in 1986, not 1996 (edited)

The Telecommunications Act sucked, but it did not contribute to the launch of Fox Noise.

On edit, here's a timeline:

<...>

Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio Express-News. Soon afterwards, he founded Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976, he purchased the New York Post. On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalised citizen in order to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own American television stations. Also in 1985, Murdoch purchased the 20th Century Fox movie studio. In 1986, Murdoch purchased six television stations owned by Metromedia. These stations would form the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company, which was founded on October 9, 1986. In 1987, in Australia he bought The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, the company that his father had once managed. By 1991, his Australian-based News Corp. had worked up huge debts (much from Sky TV in the UK), forcing Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-1980s.

In 1995, Murdoch's Fox Network became the object of scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), when it was alleged that News Ltd.'s Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. However, the FCC ruled in Murdoch's favor, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the best interests of the public. That same year, Murdoch announced a deal with MCI Communications to develop a major news website and magazine, The Weekly Standard. Also that year, News Corp. launched the Foxtel pay television network in Australia in partnership with Telstra.

In 1996, Murdoch decided to enter the cable news market with the Fox News Channel, a 24-hour cable news station. Following its launch, the heavily-funded Fox News consistently eroded CNN's market share and eventually proclaimed itself as "the most-watched cable news channel". Ratings studies released in the fourth quarter of 2004 showed that the network was responsible for nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable News" category at that time. Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner (owner of CNN) are long-standing rivals.

link

He did launch the cable station in 1996, but by that time he had purchased a number of U.S. media outlets.

[madfloridian]

28. Fox News Wiki says cable station formed in 1996...

That is the part I was referring to in my OP. Fox News cable station. I did not mention others because this is the one with so much power in our country today.

"Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly referred to as Fox News or Fox, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation. As of April 2009, it is available to 102 million households in the United States and further to viewers internationally, broadcasting primarily out of its New York City studios.

The channel was created by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who hired former NBC executive and Republican political consultant Roger Ailes as the founding CEO.<1> The channel was launched on October 7, 1996<2> to 17 million cable subscribers. The channel grew in the late 1990s. Fox News finished the first quarter of 2009 as the second-most-watched cable network in primetime, behind USA Network.<3>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel

They cite David Brancaccio as one source.

^ Brancaccio, David (October 7, 1996). "Marketplace: News Archives". Marketplace. Archived from the original on 2010-11-22. http://www.webcitation.org/5uRTqDrOb. Retrieved May 12, 2010.

http://www.webcitation.org/5uRTqDrOb

Marketplace: News Archives

"There was a milestone of sorts in the cable television industry today. CNN and MSNBC have a new competitor, a formidable one in the form of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel. Marketplace's Philip Boroff has more from the New York desk.

Boroff: "News without bias. We Report. You decide. Some of the mottos that the new Fox News Channel was advertising in major newspapers today. Chief Roger Ailes, the former Republican political consultant, says its news will be more fair than other news outfits, which he claims usually lean to the left. Fox News features sports, show biz, politics, psychology, a family program and two hours a week on pets. But Ailes says it will have a hard news edge, a harder edge than the new MSNBC, from NBC and software giant Microsoft.

Ailes: "You know they have a full fifty percent partner who is in the computer business, so they have some restrictions we don't have."