Like most adolescent boys I had a strong interest in tropical Geography, but National Geographic has always been one of those magazines too beautiful and informative to throw out. Basements and attics around the world are still packed with moldering stacks of these magazines. It's hard even to give them away, but that may change. Rupert Murdoch has bought the place, it's no longer a not-for-profit corporation and thus the information it contains will no longer be above suspicion. Of course it hasn't been the best place to see bare breasted women for a long time, but it's wonderful ability to present science to the masses without the taint of sales hype and politics is now gone as well. Murdoch has apparently already done a Trump and fired the award winning staff.
Will the famous yellow cover take on a new meaning? Can we expect more stories about Atlantis, UFOs and alien abductions? Will the next article about ancient Egypt be authored by Ben Carson of the hollow pyramids theory or Mike Huckabee of the 6000 year old Earth? I'm sue we'll hear no more about climate change or the decline of bio-diversity and pollution. I'm sure we will be treated to spectacular photography of the village in Kenya where Barack Obama was born and the women will be wearing shirts.
Again one of the icons of journalism has fallen to the scoundrels who own Fox News and soon will be sharing the same corporate motto Pontius Pilate made famous: What is Truth? It's one small step for the end times and one giant leap for ignorance.
Showing posts with label Rupert Murdoch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rupert Murdoch. Show all posts
Monday, November 9, 2015
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Me cago en su tumba
Another dank, dark and dismal morning in the Sunshine State, but it's comforting to know I control the press. And who would doubt the word of Murdoch, the man America trusts and the man who controls the largest TV news outlet in America. That's right, ol' scrotum face himself channeled Hermann Goering on Twitter, barking about the "Jewish Owned" press.
More disgusting to me is the response I see on the You Tube video, from people who are angry that anyone would be angry. Am I presumptuous to think that these same vermin would take umbrage at my comments about the Christian owned government or the Christian owned media or the Christian backed assault on personal liberty?
Murdoch is some 14 years older than I am, which gives me a fair chance of being able to shit on his grave. I can't wait.
More disgusting to me is the response I see on the You Tube video, from people who are angry that anyone would be angry. Am I presumptuous to think that these same vermin would take umbrage at my comments about the Christian owned government or the Christian owned media or the Christian backed assault on personal liberty?
Murdoch is some 14 years older than I am, which gives me a fair chance of being able to shit on his grave. I can't wait.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Nothing Informs Better Than Fox News (With an Update by Octopus)
Please take the title of this post at face value with no derision or mockery intended. According to a recent PublicMind Poll from Fairleigh Dickenson University (FDU), Some News Leaves People Knowing Less than those who consume no news at all.
The poll tested consumers’ knowledge of recent popular uprisings in Egypt and Syria and found a disturbing pattern of wrong answers by news source. Here is what the poll tested: Did the people of Egypt successfully topple the regime of Hosni Mubarak? The highest percentage of correct answers came from listeners of NPR at 68%. Lowest on the scale were viewers of Fox News at 49%.
According to Dan Cassino, a political science professor at FDU and an analyst for the poll: “The [poll] results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”
These results come as no surprise. On July 25, 2010, I posted this commentary, A Contest of Madmen for the Primacy of the Sewer, which covered similar findings from The Center for Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. In all studies thus far, Fox News ranks at the bottom of the heap. Of course, few of us need a poll to confirm what we know intuitively: Fox News is not a news source but merely a ratings engine with only one purpose: To deliver maximum audience share for the Murdoch propaganda machine.
For a more detailed account on the sorry state of contemporary journalism, please have a look at the original post (which includes an important historical observation by Bloggingdino).
Wednesday Update:
(Pls. see comments below): "Not if one maintains an active mind."
If any visitors to this forum are implying – even in jest – that any writers or readers of this community have “inactive” minds, think again! Our minds are NOT inactive! Nor uninformed! Nor unwashed! If this is your implication, then consider me a very pissed off cephalopod. PAY ATTENTION because I will not repeat this again:
Fox News is the #1 purveyor of PARTISAN HATE SPEECH in America today. Fevered hysteria and conspiratorial fear mongering on national television are not harmless. For years, Fox News gave Glenn Beck a national audience, and this is what partisan hate speech has wrought (all have active links to original sources):
Murders, shooting sprees, domestic terrorism, private citizens hiding in fear, infamous intimidations and provocations broadcast on national television - all linked to Fox News!
After the shooting rampage in Tucson that left six people dead and thirteen injured, including Congresswoman Giffords, Fox News President Roger Ailes offered this appeal for civility: “I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast.”
More bullshit! Nothing has changed. Week after week, Fox News churns out a constant sludge of partisan hate speech from verbal abusers such as Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy, and his son, Peter Doocy, as examples.
How quickly we forget these lessons of history. How the language of eradication and elimination (i.e. characterizing people as diseased, as vermin, as traitors, as a scourge) has led to genocide, pogroms, murder, and violence. The poisoned atmosphere unleashed by Fox News means any citizen - Democrat, Centrist, or Republican - can be slandered in public and targeted for persecution. Furthermore, these messages reach unhinged misfits who are most likely to act on impulse, and events have shown that violent rhetoric leads to violent acts. There is no plausible deniability that can exonerate Fox News.
Furthermore, when toxic television threatens public safety, it concerns everyone. Even prominent Republicans are alarmed:
Partisan hate speech is not free speech. Nor entertainment. Nor funny. For all reasons cited above, gratuitous liberal bashing - even implied - is unacceptable here. If anything, perhaps the partisan biases of certain readers have blinded them to these outrageous abuses of the public airwaves. As the saying goes: No news is good news - and far better news than Fox News.
The poll tested consumers’ knowledge of recent popular uprisings in Egypt and Syria and found a disturbing pattern of wrong answers by news source. Here is what the poll tested: Did the people of Egypt successfully topple the regime of Hosni Mubarak? The highest percentage of correct answers came from listeners of NPR at 68%. Lowest on the scale were viewers of Fox News at 49%.
According to Dan Cassino, a political science professor at FDU and an analyst for the poll: “The [poll] results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”
These results come as no surprise. On July 25, 2010, I posted this commentary, A Contest of Madmen for the Primacy of the Sewer, which covered similar findings from The Center for Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. In all studies thus far, Fox News ranks at the bottom of the heap. Of course, few of us need a poll to confirm what we know intuitively: Fox News is not a news source but merely a ratings engine with only one purpose: To deliver maximum audience share for the Murdoch propaganda machine.
For a more detailed account on the sorry state of contemporary journalism, please have a look at the original post (which includes an important historical observation by Bloggingdino).
Wednesday Update:
(Pls. see comments below): "Not if one maintains an active mind."
If any visitors to this forum are implying – even in jest – that any writers or readers of this community have “inactive” minds, think again! Our minds are NOT inactive! Nor uninformed! Nor unwashed! If this is your implication, then consider me a very pissed off cephalopod. PAY ATTENTION because I will not repeat this again:
Fox News is the #1 purveyor of PARTISAN HATE SPEECH in America today. Fevered hysteria and conspiratorial fear mongering on national television are not harmless. For years, Fox News gave Glenn Beck a national audience, and this is what partisan hate speech has wrought (all have active links to original sources):
Murders, shooting sprees, domestic terrorism, private citizens hiding in fear, infamous intimidations and provocations broadcast on national television - all linked to Fox News!
After the shooting rampage in Tucson that left six people dead and thirteen injured, including Congresswoman Giffords, Fox News President Roger Ailes offered this appeal for civility: “I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast.”
More bullshit! Nothing has changed. Week after week, Fox News churns out a constant sludge of partisan hate speech from verbal abusers such as Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy, and his son, Peter Doocy, as examples.
How quickly we forget these lessons of history. How the language of eradication and elimination (i.e. characterizing people as diseased, as vermin, as traitors, as a scourge) has led to genocide, pogroms, murder, and violence. The poisoned atmosphere unleashed by Fox News means any citizen - Democrat, Centrist, or Republican - can be slandered in public and targeted for persecution. Furthermore, these messages reach unhinged misfits who are most likely to act on impulse, and events have shown that violent rhetoric leads to violent acts. There is no plausible deniability that can exonerate Fox News.
Furthermore, when toxic television threatens public safety, it concerns everyone. Even prominent Republicans are alarmed:
Former Bush speechwriter David Frum:
Former Bush speechwriter Peter Wehner:
National correspondent for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg:
Partisan hate speech is not free speech. Nor entertainment. Nor funny. For all reasons cited above, gratuitous liberal bashing - even implied - is unacceptable here. If anything, perhaps the partisan biases of certain readers have blinded them to these outrageous abuses of the public airwaves. As the saying goes: No news is good news - and far better news than Fox News.
Friday, July 8, 2011
What the Impact of the British Tabloid Scandal on American Journalism SHOULD BE.
By Octopus
There have always been rogue journalists on both sides of the Atlantic. This time, the sleazy narrative is about telephone hacking, invasions of privacy in the pursuit of lurid celebrity gossip, criminal interference in a murder investigation, and payoffs to politicians and police investigators. The British tabloid scandal is about press abuse in extremis; and the One Ring that binds them together is Rupert Murdoch whose half century of acquisitions have turned his media empire into a malignant force in British and American journalism. As an old adage sates: If power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the British tabloid scandal should remind us about the dangers of consolidating power in the hands of rogue operators.
Little noticed beneath the garish headlines of the week is this story: A federal appeals court overturned the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to further weaken media ownership rules. Had these rules gone into effect, it would have unleashed a new wave of media consolidation across the country.
In 2007, the FCC ignored letters and calls from millions of Americans when it tried to rewrite media ownership rules that would let companies own both newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market. This change would have opened the floodgates to new media mergers … leading to massive layoffs, less local coverage, fewer voices in the marketplace of ideas, and more opportunities for abuse.
The court pointed to public comments from people like us as a deciding factor in overturning the FCC’s attempt to change its rules. But the struggle does not end here. Right now, media conglomerates are using loopholes and backroom deals to get around media ownership rules and further consolidate their power. The conglomerates must be stopped if we are to salvage what little integrity is left in American journalism.
To help raise awareness, I am re-posting an article contributed almost a year ago, A Contest of Madmen for the Primacy of the Sewer, which appears immediately below this post.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
PARTITIONING THE INTERNET: WHERE PARTISANS AND MONOPOLISTS COLLUDE
Just when you thought hyper partisanship couldn’t get any worse, when the country wasn’t bitterly polarized enough, now we learn that there are forces in motion that threaten to divide the Internet. An unholy alliance between a monopolist and a news conglomerate wants to change Cyberspace.
In case you haven’t tracked this story, Rupert Murdoch wants to block Google’s search engine and prevent it from accessing all content from News Corporation. This means no more online access … at least through Google … to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Times of London, or other company-owned content. Yes, you guessed it: Murdoch is exploring online payment models to boost revenues and will grant exclusive access to Microsoft’s search engine … in exchange for payment. And Microsoft does not mind hurting Google’s margins.
Of course, the Internet search engine market is not the only place where Google and Microsoft compete head to head. Recently, Google announced a new operating system, Chrome OS, that will compete against Windows in the web-enabled laptop market.
Implications? There is no telling where this all is going and how it will affect the future of the Internet. Does this mean an end to the Information Super Highway as monopolists carve it up to profit themselves? I have my suspicions. What are yours?
In case you haven’t tracked this story, Rupert Murdoch wants to block Google’s search engine and prevent it from accessing all content from News Corporation. This means no more online access … at least through Google … to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Times of London, or other company-owned content. Yes, you guessed it: Murdoch is exploring online payment models to boost revenues and will grant exclusive access to Microsoft’s search engine … in exchange for payment. And Microsoft does not mind hurting Google’s margins.
Of course, the Internet search engine market is not the only place where Google and Microsoft compete head to head. Recently, Google announced a new operating system, Chrome OS, that will compete against Windows in the web-enabled laptop market.
Implications? There is no telling where this all is going and how it will affect the future of the Internet. Does this mean an end to the Information Super Highway as monopolists carve it up to profit themselves? I have my suspicions. What are yours?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
A right wing bigot owns our media
Well there you have it. With Fox News, it starts right at the top. He's not sure if it's valid to compare President Obama with Stalin, he says, but he certainly is a racist and Glenn Beck was right in saying it, says Rupert Murdoch.
Of course Murdoch denied being aware that Beck had compared our President with Joseph Stalin even though, of course, he did just that and of course Fox in general is engaged in an often self-contradictory orgy of slanderous invention deceptive video editing and stealing rumors from disreputable blogs without investigation. If Murdoch isn't aware or doesn't understand, it argues strongly for the deranged and dishonest. If we're looking for the reason behind Fox's loyalty to someone who is loosing advertisers and making our country and much of its media a laughing stock, here you have it: Rupert Murdoch thinks Glenn Beck is right and I don't mean far Right.
Obama may not hate white people, admitted Beck, but he has a problem with "white culture" and I suppose that might be true if you define white culture as Glenn Beck's kind of loathing for anything smelling of decency. Indeed lumping together the "white" people of the world into one culture is in itself an act of idiotic, deceptive and ugly racism, but do we need to need to explain Glenn Beck or do we need to boycott every and any Rupert Murdoch enterprise until he feels it in his swollen bank accounts?
"But he did make a very racist comment. Ahhh…about, you know, blacks and whites and so on, and which he said in his campaign he would be completely above. And um, that was something which perhaps shouldn’t have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, he was right,"he said on Australian TV. Well ahhh and um, anybody who can look at Barak Obama in the context of early 21st century America; stand him against Murdoch's race-baiting bogus journalism and call him a racist is either deranged, dishonest or stupid. I don't rule out that Rupert has hit theTrifecta here.
Of course Murdoch denied being aware that Beck had compared our President with Joseph Stalin even though, of course, he did just that and of course Fox in general is engaged in an often self-contradictory orgy of slanderous invention deceptive video editing and stealing rumors from disreputable blogs without investigation. If Murdoch isn't aware or doesn't understand, it argues strongly for the deranged and dishonest. If we're looking for the reason behind Fox's loyalty to someone who is loosing advertisers and making our country and much of its media a laughing stock, here you have it: Rupert Murdoch thinks Glenn Beck is right and I don't mean far Right.
Obama may not hate white people, admitted Beck, but he has a problem with "white culture" and I suppose that might be true if you define white culture as Glenn Beck's kind of loathing for anything smelling of decency. Indeed lumping together the "white" people of the world into one culture is in itself an act of idiotic, deceptive and ugly racism, but do we need to need to explain Glenn Beck or do we need to boycott every and any Rupert Murdoch enterprise until he feels it in his swollen bank accounts?
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