Fox News (or as I call it, Faux News) is an example of what happens when Murdoch (and his factotum Roger Aisles) gain control of an enterprise.( Let us not forget that it was Aisles who stampeded the press into calling the election for Bush in 2000, thus giving George jr a leg up in the setttlement of the contest.) It becomes an entertainment company and all the other journalistic media in the country (except Rush Limbaugh) regard it with contempt. This is warranted, but it ignores the political problem Faux News creates -- that is the constant drone of Faux News continually stirs the choleric in the Tea Party and the body politic and contributes to the polarization of the nation. In addition the WSJ provides a platform for the rabid conservatives to spew their venom and hatred into the national bloodstream: Karl Rove, Peggy Noonan and their ilk regularly spin the news to the benefit of the radical right. This is not to mention the platform he gives to the Bush architects of the iraq war: Feith, John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Eliot Abrahams.
This is the first of a series nipping at the heeels of the WSJ.
Enjoy. Infinite material here to raise your blood pressure.
Since time immemorial the Wall Street Journal has been a bastion of conservative -- if not reactionary -- thought. Its opinion and editorial pages could be dependably relied upon to voice the business and investment community point of view. Regardless of whether that point of view was purely selfish or devoted to the public good.
It was an honorable history. Charles Dow and William Peter Hamilton were the only beacons of enlightenment about the stock market in the 19th and early 20th century. The Dow Theory, cobbled together by the two of them, was an economic achievement of considerable magnitude -- even though largely unacknowledged at the time -- and unacknowledged to the present by the unenlightened.
The paper was looked to as an honest reporter of business -- and political news. Always of course from the Robert Taft point of view -- and the point of view of the owners and employers. But honest.
You might not have liked it, but the news was the news, and editorial opinion was on the editorial page uninfected by the opinions of the owners. That was the Bancroft family --whether they were the makers of the elegant and well built squash and tennis racquets I don’t know but they were the only racquets I would use in the golden days of college and early financial independence. Then the metal racquets came -- and everything went to hell. But that is a different story.
Except it is analagous. In that as long as the Journal remained under the control of the Bancroft family the Journal journalism could be trusted to be unprejudiced news. But when Rupert Murdoch made the family an offer they could not refuse, they could not refuse and he made them extravagant billionaires (and George Bush made certain that they paid as little tax on the transaction as a minimum wage worker could manage.)
Since that time, to the frustration of the Journal editors the WSJ has won NO pulitzer prizes for reporting. That’s because the reporting is constantly infected by the antediluvian political attitudes of Murdoch -- the cancer in the body politic. There is now as much spin as there is honest reporting. Murdoch makes no secret of his reactionary and troglodytic political agenda. He would like to wield the power in the United States that he once did in Britain, where he was a king maker. His megalomania knows no bounds. To the consternation of his now royal court in the criminal dock. His lust for power communicated itself to all his minions and they may now end up in gaol. Gaol is British for JAIL. Where they all richly desreve to spend a little time. Murdoch (and they) corrupted the British police and infected the journalistic establishment. Gaol them!
But like an alien invader or a metastisizing cancer he continues to try to amass as much media power as he can in order to implement his radical agenda. That the agenda is deeply reactionary or mad-conservative is probably less important than the power itself.
Fox News (or as I call it, Faux News) is an example of what happens when Murdoch (and his factotum Roger Aisles) gain control of an enterprise.( Let us not forget that it was Aisles who stampeded the press into calling the election for Bush in 2000, thus giving George jr a leg up in the setttlement of the contest.) It becomes an entertainment company and all the other journalistic media in the country (except Rush Limbaugh) regard it with contempt. This is warranted, but it ignores the political problem Faux News creates -- that is the constant drone of Faux News continually stirs the choleric in the Tea Party and the body politic and contributes to the polarization of the nation. In addition the WSJ provides a platform for the rabid conservatives to spew their venom and hatred into the national bloodstream: Karl Rove, Peggy Noonan and their ilk regularly spin the news to the benefit of the radical right. This is not to mention the platform he gives to the Bush architects of the iraq war: Feith, John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Eliot Abrahams.
The good news is Murdoch is 82. Time will take care of him before long. But, just as rust never sleeps, neither does lust, and lust can keep an old goat vigorous past his time.
Meanwhile Murdoch and Aisles grind on working every day to prove that no one ever went broke overestimating the intelligence of the American public.
This is the first of series of pieces critisizing the WSJ. Picture a terrier nipping at the heels of a mastadon.