Is Fox News Working for the GOP or is the GOP working for Fox News???

1. 72

   Ralph Deedsposted 14 years ago

   Paul Krugman:
   
   As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy...
   
   Arguably, this shouldn’t be surprising. Modern American conservatism is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paychecks for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defenses of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultrawealthy families...
   
   Nobody who was paying attention has ever doubted that Fox is, in reality, a part of the Republican political machine; but the network — with its Orwellian slogan, “fair and balanced” — has always denied the obvious. Officially, it still does. But by hiring those G.O.P. candidates, while at the same time making million-dollar contributions  to the Republican Governors Association and the rabidly anti-Obama United States Chamber of Commerce, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox, is signaling that it no longer feels the need to make any effort to keep up appearances.
   
   Something else has changed, too: increasingly, Fox News has gone from merely supporting Republican candidates to anointing them. Christine O’Donnell, the upset winner of the G.O.P. Senate primary in Delaware, is often described as the Tea Party candidate, but given the publicity the network gave her, she could equally well be described as the Fox News candidate. Anyway, there’s not much difference: the Tea Party movement owes much of its rise to enthusiastic Fox coverage...
   
   As the Republican political analyst David Frum put it, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox” — literally, in the case of all those non-Mitt-Romney presidential hopefuls. It was days later, by the way, that Mr. Frum was fired by the American Enterprise Institute. Conservatives criticize Fox at their peril...
   
   So think of those paychecks to Sarah Palin and others as smart investments. After all, if you’re a media mogul, it’s always good to have friends in high places. And the most reliable friends are the ones who know they owe it all to you. 
   
   
   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/opini … ef=opinion

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2. 61

   Randy Godwinposted 14 years ago

   No surprise at all, Ralph!  Except to Fox watchers, perhaps!  LOL!

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3. 86

   lovemychrisposted 14 years ago

   Did you see Murdoch at those hearings?
   He actually said that Fox has no bias towards the right. Insisted they are "fair and balanced". As one blogger said, "He must not watch his own network" !!

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4. 61

   dutchman1951posted 14 years ago

   some more for you Ralph from Politico
   
   Main Content  from
   Fox parent gives $1 million to RGA - Ben Smith: Fox parent gives $1 million to RGAAugust 16, 2010
   Categories:Fox News Channel.Fox parent gives $1 million to RGA
   News Corp., which owns Fox News and the New York Post, gave $1 million to Haley Barbour's Republican Governors Association this year, according to the RGA's most recent filing.
   
   The company's media outlets play politics more openly than most, but the huge contribution to a party committee is a new step toward an open identification between Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and the GOP. The company's highest-ranking Democratic executive, Peter Chernin, recently departed.
   
   The $1 million contribution this June 24 was first reported by Bloomberg and appears on the RGA's July 15 filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

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5. 71

   Cagsilposted 14 years ago

   Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again- politicians in America are no longer actively helping society, as they are suppose to be doing. Politicians no longer interested in what is in the best interest of the people, but what they can line their pockets with from business.
   
   So, politicians in the pocket of business. I'm sure some where in the politicians portfolio of investments are huge pay-off in the end.
   
   To think that business is running this country is not absurd. Just look at the sh!t that business gets away with.
   
   Capitalism is just a fancy word for "barter/trade". In the barter/trade economy, profit made is capital. Thus, business ownership means you're taking advantage of "capitalism" the ideology. That means, profit above all else.
   
   You sell a product/good or services to citizens. You make a profit, in turn, gives you capital to operate. How greedy you become? Is another story.
   
   *on another note- the media is no different than any other business- just like pharma companies lying to the public or the FDA lying to the public. All of which, only wants to grow profits.
   
   It's unbelievable how people buy into either side of the equation, without looking at the whole picture. Damn people, wake up.

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6. 74

   Mighty Momposted 14 years ago

   "Fair and Balanced"?
   That must be yesterday's slogan.
   I am watching Fox News right now (no pun intended), just to be sure my impressions are still in line with their actual news coverage.
   
   The slogan I heard -- and I am NOT making this up --
   "The POWER of Fox." Seriously.
   A far cry from "Fair and Balanced."
   
   Of course, I heard The Power of Fox during O'Reilly's "No Spin Zone" so that might have something to do with it.

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7. 0

   ralwusposted 14 years ago

   Now you know how I felt when I was expecting a Walter Cronkite and found Lady Gaga.

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