"Title Hyperbole"? Maybe so, but if you have a moment, indulge me.
Most Kossacks recall the "good old days" of the early 1990's, when Rush Limbaugh and a handful of other right-wing radio blowhards were the worst we had to endure in terms of a "Right Wing Noise Machine". Back then, in the run-up to the first Gulf War, we could actually tune in to CNN and get, well... useful, informative news, reported by actual journalists.
In ten short years, all of that changed and by the end of Bill Clinton's second term in office, we had a very different journalistic landscape in the United States. Yes, of course the Internet had changed things dramatically but even at that time, the vast majority of Americans still got their news the old fashioned way -- from tee-vee -- and there was a new "star" that had emerged and rapidly climbed the cable television news ratings charts.
We know it, then and today, as Fox News and it became so successful that many of its predecessors -- cable news and otherwise -- rushed to emulate it in style and substance. Even though Fox vehemently denied its far right-wing slant all the way down to its ridiculous "Fair and Balanced" slogan, most of us progressives saw it for what it was from the get-go: A propaganda tool for the Republican Party. It's owner, then and now: Rupert Murdoch the worldly, media mogul's mogul.
And lest we forget, that decade ended with an extraordinary "election" in which George W. Bush was selected by the United States Supreme Court due to the election debacle in Florida. That debacle was largely set into motion by Fox News, when it called the state of Florida for Mr. Bush... even though virtually all of the other networks had called the state for Al Gore. Imagine, for a moment, how different our world might be today had that not happened. Then please follow below the squiggly lines for more of my "hyperbole" that Mr. Murdoch is, arguably, one of the greatest dangers we face as Progressive Americans.
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