The Australian born Rupert Murdoch started Fox News in 1996. I wonder if that date is coincidental with the 1996 Telecommunications bill passed that year with Bill Clinton's signature. It's stated purpose:
Stated objective
Its stated objective was to open up markets to competition by removing regulatory barriers to entry: The conference report refers to the bill “to provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced services and information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition....” <2> Congress attempted to create a regulatory framework for the transition from primarily monopoly provision to competitive provision of telecommunications services.
Telecommunications Act of 1996So many seem to be in denial that the present atmosphere of violence is political. It has become that way largely because of Fox News and its way of creating stories that are half-truths or have no basis in truth and all..and trumpeting them out to the country. So many have been trained that it is a good thing to say they only watch Fox, no other news station.
Murdoch with Fox News and the other media he owns like The Weekly Standard and the New York Post has certainly succeeded in getting across his very right wing views. Here is more on that from an article from the Center for America Progress in 2003. It is worth reading all of it.
Who is Rupert Murdoch?Consider Murdoch's empire: According to Businessweek, "his satellites deliver TV programs in five continents, all but dominating Britain, Italy, and wide swaths of Asia and the Middle East. He publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country...His cable channels include fast-growing Fox News, and 19 regional sports channels. In all, as many as one in five American homes at any given time will be tuned into a show News Corp. either produced or delivered.As this report shows, he is a far-right partisan who has used his empire explicitly to pull American political debate to the right. He is also an enabler of the oppressive tactics employed by dictatorial regimes, and a man who admits to having hidden money in tax havens. In short, there more to Rupert Murdoch than meets the eye.
I remember so well in the early 2000s when Fox News was pushing so hard for the invasion of Iraq. Their ratings were so high that CNN and MSNBC decided that was really what the public wanted, so they tried to be just like Fox. There was no network calling out for wiser decision making. It was all about ratings.
MURDOCH THE WAR MONGER: Just after the Iraq invasion, the New York Times reported, "The war has illuminated anew the exceptional power in the hands of Murdoch, 72, the chairman of News Corp… In the last several months, the editorial policies of almost all his English-language news organizations have hewn very closely to Murdoch's own stridently hawkish political views, making his voice among the loudest in the Anglophone world in the international debate over the American-led war with Iraq." The Guardian reported before the war Murdoch gave "his full backing to war, praising George Bush as acting 'morally' and 'correctly' and describing Tony Blair as 'full of guts'" for his support of the war. Murdoch said just before the war, "We can't back down now – I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly."(New York Times, 4/9/03; Guardian, 2/12/03)
He is famous for almost having sued the creator of The Simpsons, even though they appear on Fox Entertainment.
MURDOCH THE INTIMIDATOR: According to Agence France-Press, "Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of 'The Simpsons' over a parody of the channel's right-wing political stance…In an interview this week with National Public Radio, Matt Groening recalled how the news channel had considered legal action, despite the fact that 'The Simpsons' is broadcast on sister network, Fox Entertainment. ccording to Groening, Fox took exception took (to) a Simpsons' version of the Fox News rolling news ticker which parodied the channel's anti-Democrat stance with headlines like 'Do Democrats Cause Cancer?'" (Source: Agence France-Press, 10/29/03)
I followed some of the links and found some interesting things. Like the time that he was going to sue Al Franken over his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Why? Because Franken subtitled his book A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
As if to drive the point home, in August of 2003, Fox brought suit against the humorist Al Franken and his publisher, EP Dutton/Penguin, for allegedly infringing on Fox's three-word trademark. The offense? Franken's book, Liars and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (which attacked Fox), was subtitled "A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." However, when Fox appealed for a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin refused the request – adding that he found Fox's lawsuit to be "wholly without merit, both factually and legally." The judge also said that Fox's right to such a trademark was not very strong, suggesting that, if challenged, it might well be revoked. "From a legal point of view," said Judge Chin, "I think it is highly unlikely that the phrase 'fair and balanced' is a valid trademark. I can't accept that that phrase can be plucked out of the marketplace of ideas and slogans." A few days later, instead of proceeding to trial – as was its right – Fox abruptly decided to drop its lawsuit against Franken. There was no follow up to Judge Chin's suggestion. So Fox was able to retain its trademark registration – and the right to continue using it to mischaracterize its news product as "Fair and Balanced." But perhaps not for very much longer.
Fox News: Unfair and UnbalancedA 1998 article from the Columbia Journalism Review talked about Murdoch's Mean Machine.
How Rupert uses his vast media power to help himself and hammer his foesDuring the regimes of Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major in Britain, Murdoch ventures -- especially his purchase of newspapers and the launch of his BSkyB service -- were repeatedly favored with easing of regulations and with government failure to invoke monopoly oversight. Murdoch's papers, in turn, played a central role in bolstering Thatcher's career and virulently attacked her opponents. Thatcher's memoirs, for which she is believed to have accepted at least $3 million, were published by HarperCollins. John Major, too, is believed to have accepted a seven-figure advance from Murdoch. Now there is talk that a coalition of other publishing companies should jointly outbid Murdoch for Prime Minister Tony Blair's future memoirs, in an effort to blunt News Corp.'s influence with the Laborite, which is already strong.
In the United States, Murdoch's percentage of media ownership is lower (except for television) than in England and Australia, but his influence and reach are growing quickly. His U.S. properties include Twentieth Century Fox, HarperCollins, TV Guide, the New York Post, Fox Broadcasting, Fox News Channel, Fox Sports Net, The Weekly Standard, and television stations in New York (WNYW), Washington (WTTG), Los Angeles (KTTV), Philadelphia (WTXF), Chicago (WFLD), Atlanta (WAGA), Boston (WFXT), Phoenix (KSAZ), and fourteen other cities.(List is from 1998, am not sure if ownership still the same.)
"His company has grown so rapidly I'm not sure people have stopped to look at how he got where he is," says Washington Post staff writer Paul Farhi. Late last year, the Washington Post front-paged Farhi's examination of possible accounting sleight of hand by News Corp. The article explored ways the company, which is run chiefly from Los Angeles and New York but calls Australia its corporate headquarters, is able to use that country's arcane accounting methods to turn a potential net loss of $155 million (under tough U.S. standards) into a gain of $561 million -- thereby enabling acquisition binges. Ironically, while putting the best face on its financial fortunes, News Corp. has been able to keep its worldwide corporate tax rates surprisingly low (roughly one-fifth those paid by Disney, Time Warner, and Viacom), largely by shifting income through an almost unfathomable web to low-tax and no-tax havens in places as far-flung as the Cayman Islands, Fiji, and even Cuba. Virtually no other media organizations followed up on this story.
Murdoch made an interesting comment in the Guardian in 2003, and it pretty much sums up the reason for the invasion of Iraq.
"Who knows what the future holds? I have a pretty optimistic medium and long-term view but things are going to be pretty sticky until we get Iraq behind us. But once it's behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else," he told Fortune.
Iraq and the MediaCheaper oil indeed...a pipe dream. He has had an influence on our country, and his Fox News still stirs up the right wing in unhealthy ways.
Too much of the anger and violence in this country today has truly come from the right wing media and talkers. If we deny it, we can not change it.