Rupert Murdoch is an obsession of mine. Is it his handsome good looks or down under freewheeling ways? No, it's his ability to control the message through every corner of his vast News Corp empire and his access to power.
I just found out he's on the board of the Associated Press, according to today's mediabistro.com feed. The AP is not happy with questions about their fair and balanced attack dog Ron Fournier. So Ellen Hale, VP of Corporate Communications for the Associated Press, issued a talking points memo to AP senior managers which
Michael Calderone of Politico.com kindly shared. In the memo, Ms. Hale also shaped her own truthiness with careful word choices.
Keith Olbermann took on Chuck Babington, AP writer, who seemed to have issued an analysis of Senator Obama's Thursday night convention speech while he was making it:
http://www.mediabistro.com/...
The New York Post, Murdoch's widely loathed/loved tabloid, had a cover yesterday of what appeared to be a father-son rifle-toting duo (they probably weren't rifles, maybe more zany killing tools, but those distinctions are not my strong suit) under the headline, "Storm Troopers". And the presentation was not ironic. (I tried to link to the cover but alas I couldn't find it on the internets.)
The two defiant ones were posed as lone minutemen warding off the hordes of looters bearing down on New Orleans. What a provocative image! It reminded me of the brave Klansmen riding to the rescue of white Southern womanhood in D.W. Griffith's "Birth of A Nation." It was designed to provoke fear.
Murdoch is an unchecked power with the ability to conjure up almost any message he wants and disseminate it instantly. He has politicians and corporations in his pocket. He is a kingmaker, the one they call to kiss his ring.