https://www.thedailybeast.com/former-mu ... or-americaFormer Murdoch Exec: Fox News Is Poison For America
Rupert Murdoch, whom I served for seven years, has many business and journalistic achievements. He owes himself a better legacy than a news channel that no reasonable person would believe.
It was my great honor to join Rupert, Barry Diller (who now is the chairman of IAC, The Daily Beast’s parent company), Jamie Kellner and many others in the early days of Fox Broadcasting Company, the network that’s the home to The Simpsons and the NFL. I worked closely with Rupert and I found him to be brilliant, courageous, optimistic, and a gentleman. (Everything that follows regarding Fox News and Rupert Murdoch represents my opinion.)
I had first-hand exposure to all of those qualities as he defied all of the odds to build a fourth network—a network that an expensive government study in the 1980s had concluded was “not likely to be viable.” He ignored the ridicule from ABC, CBS, and NBC, whose president called us the “coat hanger network”—a reference to the loop antennas required to receive our weak UHF local affiliate stations. Rupert never lost his confidence or his optimism. He snatched the Sunday afternoon NFL games away from CBS. He recruited strong VHF local affiliate stations from all three of the old networks. And by 2005 he had built the most watched broadcast television network in America. Amazing!
Initially Fox News followed the standard Murdoch playbook: find a market in need of new competition, jump in with both feet and shake up the status quo. Clearly there was an opening for a responsible and truthful center-right news network. And that is how Fox News started. I played a cameo role in the birth of Fox News by accompanying Roger Ailes to meet with then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to seek his help in persuading Time-Warner CEO Gerry Levin to carry Fox News on the all-important Time-Warner Cable systems in New York City. Levin did not want to provide “oxygen” for a new channel to compete with Time-Warner’s CNN. Ultimately Murdoch had to pay a massive “tribute” to cable operators to get Fox News added to their systems. But as always, he was confident—confident that his new channel would be a success and that he would get all the money back. And he did.
But, in recent years things have gone badly off the tracks at Fox News. Fox News is no longer a truthful center-right news network. The channel (especially the leading prime-time opinion programming) has contributed substantially and directly to:
Fox News has caused many millions of Americans—most of them Republicans (as my wife and I were for 50 years)—to believe things that simply are not true. For example, Yahoo News reports that 73 percent of Republicans blame “left-wing protesters” for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Of course, that is ludicrous. All one has to do is look at the pictures or videos of the attack to see that the violent mob was comprised of Trump supporters. Similarly, a poll by SSRS in late April found that two-thirds of Republicans either believe or suspect that the election was stolen from Trump—60 percent saying there is “hard evidence” that the election was stolen. As noted above, this ridiculous notion has been thoroughly refuted. But millions of Americans believe these falsehoods because they have been drilled into their minds, night after night, by Fox News.
- the unnecessary deaths of many Americans by disparaging the wearing of life-saving COVID masks;
- divisions in our society by stoking racial animus and fueling the totally false impression that Black Lives Matter and Antifa are engaged in nightly, life-threatening riots across the country;
- the unnecessary deaths of many Americans by fueling hesitation and doubt about the efficacy and safety of life-saving COVID-19 vaccines [Fox News provided me examples of pro-mask/vaccine on-air comments, but in my opinion, they were heavily outweighed by the negative comments of the highly rated primetime opinion hosts];
- former President Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from him by providing a continuous platform for wild and false claims about the election—claims refuted by more than 60 judges, Republican State election officials, recounts in numerous States and Trump’s own Attorney General; and
- the Jan. 6, 2021, violent assault on the U.S. Capitol by continually promoting former President Trump’s “Stop The Steal” rally.
The greatest irony is that I don’t believe that most of the falsehoods on Fox News reflect Rupert Murdoch’s own views. I believe that he thought that it was important to protect his own health by wearing a mask during the pandemic and he encouraged me to do the same. I believe that he thought that it was important to protect his own health by getting vaccinated at the earliest opportunity and he encouraged me to do the same. And I believe that he thinks that former President Trump is an egomaniac who lost the election by turning off voters, especially suburban women, with his behavior.
Over the past nine months I have tried, with increasing bluntness, to get Rupert to understand the real damage that Fox News is doing to America. I failed, and it was arrogant and naïve to ever have thought that I could succeed. I am at a loss to understand why he will not change course. I can only guess that the destructive editorial policy of Fox News is driven by a deep-seated vein of anti-establishment/contrarian thinking in Rupert that, at age 90, is not going to change.
Media Bias
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Re: Media Bias
Fox News is dangerous propaganda, according to left-wing SJW snowfl— oh wait, I mean former Fox News executive and lifelong Republican, Preston Padden.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka
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Re: Media Bias
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
Frank Zappa
"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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WTF? Fox Weather? Wtf are these motherfuckers playin' at?
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka
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Yeah, if only Fox News could return to the fair and balanced, thoughtful journalism of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. 'Recent years' my foot. What a pile of shit.
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Re: Media Bias
See, now here's the history that should be taught in American schools, not the horrible smears against the great Christian nation.
'Kayleigh McEnany's Latest Bold-Faced Lie Is That America's "Main Founding Fathers" Were All "Against Slavery"'
'Kayleigh McEnany's Latest Bold-Faced Lie Is That America's "Main Founding Fathers" Were All "Against Slavery"'
Kayleigh McEnany is nothing but consistent. She lied about never telling lies while serving as press secretary — her upcoming book about “what really happened within the Trump administration” will almost certainly be filled with blatant lies and disinformation — and on Tuesday, she made one of her boldest inaccurate claims yet.
While appearing on Fox News, McEnany criticized Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) for tweeting, “When they say that the 4th of July is about American freedom, remember this: the freedom they’re referring to is for white people. This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free.” She said, “The haters never take a day off from hating, that is clear. And they never take a day off from getting the facts wrong. We know most of our forefathers, all of our main Founding Fathers, were against slavery, recognized the evils of it.”
...
[O]f the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 41 of them owned slaves. McEnany might try to claim that by “main Founding Fathers,” she means George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, none of whom signed the Declaration of Independence, but Washington and Madison were not “against slavery,” and Hamilton may have been a slave owner as well. Thomas Jefferson, a “main” Founding Father who did sign, alone enslaved over 600 people.
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Blithering shithead: 'I'm not an anti-vaxxer but ...' His guest with medical credentials is telling lies, and they're both helping the COVID kill more gullible audience members. Doesn't seem a sustainable business model, but then again the Rapture will be here any day now, amiright?
'Newsmax host suggests vaccines are "against nature," and some diseases are "supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people"'
'Newsmax host suggests vaccines are "against nature," and some diseases are "supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people"'
When it comes to vaccines, and I really do want to make this clear, I mean, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm not a pro-vaxxer. I'm somebody that's looking at this thing and trying to figure it out. I've got people in my family, very close to me, who I thought should get vaccinated because when you weigh the risks. But when it comes to vaccines in general, are you of the consensus that it could potentially take a long time to really know what a vaccination does to people in some cases?
...
You know, one thing I've always thought, and maybe you can guide me on this because, obviously, I'm not a doctor. But I've always thought about vaccines, and I always think about just nature, and the way everything works. And I feel like a vaccination in a weird way is just generally kind of going against nature. Like, I mean, if there is some disease out there -- maybe there's just an ebb and flow to life where something's supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people, and that's just kind of the way evolution goes. Vaccines kind of stand in the way of that. Do you follow what I'm saying?
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Am I of the wha? --consensus? 

"With less regulation on the margins we expect the financial sector to do well under the incoming administration” —money manager
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Re: Media Bias
If vaccines are "against nature", so is brushing your goddamn teeth.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka
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Mother Nature sheds a tear every time some arsehole gets a jab. They're rejecting her loamy embrace.
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Re: Media Bias
The wheat shall be sorted from the chaff.
Rationalia relies on voluntary donations. There is no obligation of course, but if you value this place and want to see it continue please consider making a small donation towards the forum's running costs.
Details on how to do that can be found here.
.
"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
Frank Zappa
"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
.
Details on how to do that can be found here.
.
"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
Frank Zappa
"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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(meme inspired by Dr. Tess Lawrie, Dr. Brett Weinstein, and their discussion about this drug)
I can't find the video on teh yootoobs, but surely that's my lack. Anyone smart could find it, and understand her concerns.
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Re: Media Bias
Fox News has a strict COVID-19 policy that includes the kind of vaccine passport Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and other right-wing hosts have railed against
The Fox Corporation has instituted a strict COVID-19 policy that includes a vaccine passport, allowing only the company's fully-vaccinated employees to work in their offices without wearing a mask or social distancing.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka
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Re: Media Bias
Whited sepulchres, the lot of 'em... 
(thus proving that atheist devils can quote scripture...)

(thus proving that atheist devils can quote scripture...)
Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
And my gin!
And my gin!
Re: Media Bias
It's amazing how these guys spun the ordinary vaccination record into a vaccine passport though. Why can't the people trying to do the right thing be that good at word games?
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