Murdoch's $1m donation to Republicans is fair and balance

[tmarket]

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Sun and the Times in the UK, Fox and the Wall Street Journal is clever, clever like a Fox. He has now placed his bet on the 2010 election and it is on the Republicans.

Wait, isn't it illegal to give so much money from one corporation to a party? ...
No, no worries, it is soft money, the supreme court has ruled that any limit on it is unconstitutional.

Now Mr Murdoch's News Corp has given $1m to the Republican Governors Association. Thirty-seven state governorships are up for election in November and more than half of them are hotly contested. The cash injection is much needed.

It is fairly routine for media organisations to give money to the US political parties, but the owners of CBS, ABC and NBC have been relatively even-handed, giving similar amounts to both main parties - and in the realm of thousands of dollars, not millions.

Perhaps Mr Murdoch has been more fair and balanced than appears at first sight. Certainly Democrats believe that he has handed them a gift: proof positive that Fox is biased. But I doubt that this interpretation will make much difference to the viewers of the most avidly watched cable news channel, who either know exactly what they are watching or believe that as it reflects their views it must be neutral.

In an excellent article, John B Judas argues that populism is a deep current in American politics and that it need not only be a tool of the right. But at the moment it is and Fox does popular outrage better than the competition.

 

[bugscoe]

Flaming Hypocrisy and the Convenient Constitutionalists of the Fringe Political Elite
Posted by Erick Erickson
Thursday, August 19th at 5:00AM EDT

For weeks on end the political elite in this country and their sycophants have told us we must support the Ground Zero Mosque because our founding principles demand it. This fringe group, no larger than the birthers or 9/11 Truthers and smaller than the mainstream group called the “tea party movement” the fringe political elite has labeled fringe, are not afraid to tell you that you are filled with hate and prejudice if you disagree with them.

The people who want to build the mosque, after all, have a constitutional right to build the mosque. Therefore, if we do not support them in their efforts, we are bigots. How dare any of us condemn them for exercising their constitutional right.

Compare the demands of the political elite and their sycophants on the mosque issue with their condemnation of NewsCorp.

The parent company of the Fox News Channel dared to give $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. According to the same flaming hypocrites who will call 70% of America bigoted for not supporting the constitutional right to build a mosque at Ground Zero, NewsCorp must be burned to the ground and the Avenue of the Americas covered in salt because NewsCorp had the audacity to exercise its constitutional right to use that other bit of the First Amendment not being used by the Mosqueteers.

If the political elite is going to demand we support the Ground Zero mosque because of the constitution, then they must also support NewsCorp unless they are really just what we know they actually are — convenient constitutionalists.

The whole thing really and truly is just a mosquerade.

 

[Tsing Tao]

$1m to the republican party is chump change. why not look up how much folks like buffet and soros and gates have given to the democrats.

besides who cares who murdoch donates to isnt it his money???

or do liberals want to control that too?

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from tmarket:

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Sun and the Times in the UK, Fox and the Wall Street Journal is clever, clever like a Fox. He has now placed his bet on the 2010 election and it is on the Republicans.

Wait, isn't it illegal to give so much money from one corporation to a party? ...
No, no worries, it is soft money, the supreme court has ruled that any limit on it is unconstitutional.

not only that but most of the potential republican presidential candidates work for fox news.

 

[bugscoe]

You guys forgot this important tidbit:

WaPo Highlights Dem Outrage at Fox Donations to GOP, Downplays Reality of 50-50 Contributions
By Tim Graham
Wed, 08/18/2010 - 08:03 ET

The Washington Post hyped the news on the front of Wednesday's Style section that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, "triggering swift criticism from Democrats that a contribution of that magnitude casts a shadow on his media properties, particularly Fox News." In paragraph 13, on page C-10, this apparent outrage of Republican favoritism gets ruined by reality:

Until now, the News Corp./Fox political action committee had given 54 percent of its donations to Democrats and 46 percent to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics -- including $8,000 to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid's campaign committee and $5,000 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's organization. News Corp. also gave $45,000 each to GOP and Democratic campaign committees on Capitol Hill.

So the real story here is that Democrats are having a fit over the RGA donation, even if the overall donation levels are about even. Reporter Howard Kurtz failed to inform readers that Murdoch held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2006 (and the New York Post endorsed her Senate re-election bid). Kurtz only mentioned he'd "sought accomodations" with her:

An outspoken conservative, the Australian-born Murdoch has nonetheless sought accommodations over the years with political rivals, including Tony Blair when he was British prime minister and Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was a senator from New York.

Kurtz suggested the RGA donation spurred a new anti-Fox News political campaign by the Democratic Party:

The White House refused for months to make top officials available for interviews and assailed Fox as an arm of the Republican Party -- an attack that was revived Tuesday.

"Any pretense that may have existed about the ties between Fox News and the Republican Party has been ripped violently away," said Hari Sevugan, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. "Any Republican that appears on Fox should now have a disclaimer that they are financially supported by the network and any coverage of the elections this fall on Fox should be reported with disclaimer for what it is -- partisan propaganda."

But if "disclaimers" were being handed out, wouldn't every report on Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have to note they were funded by the parent company of Fox News? And wouldn't that tend to ruin the DNC spin? If Sevugan thinks the on-air FNC product is ridiculously unfair and imbalanced, if anything, the roughly 50-50 donations levels must be more balanced than the TV coverage.

It's quite clear that the Democrats are used to a media environment where every network, every newspaper, and every "news" magazine caters to Barack Obama and find it scandalous and outrageous that anyone wouldn't march to their drumbeat. Being a "real" news network and not a "partisan propaganda" outlet by their definition actually requires being a partisan propaganda outlet for Obama.

 

[Ricter]

...who either know exactly what they are watching or believe that as it reflects their views it must be neutral.

Most interesting line in the thread so far. Psychological and philosophical truth there, related to the egocentric illusion if I recall the term correctly.

 

[bugscoe]

On FOX, Barney Frank said:

“There were people in this society who for economic and, frankly, social reasons can’t and shouldn’t be homeowners,” Frank said. “I think we should, particularly, stop this assumption that you put everybody into homeownership.”

Is this another right wing conspiracy, a lie, not fair and balanced? What is going on here?

 

[Free Thinker]

fox news is easily able to brainwash a group of people who start out with little intellectual curiosity. this poll is a good example of the mindset of this group.

The Right Wing Mindset in a Nutshell
Posted on: August 18, 2010 10:36 AM, by Ed Brayton

This poll by John Hawkins of Right Wing News -- a poll of 43 conservative bloggers asking them to list the worst people in all of American history -- reveals much about the hyper-partisanship of those bloggers. While there are a few obvious bad guys on the list, much of it is made up of Democratic politicians and liberal thinkers with whom they disagree. Here's the full list:

23) Saul Alinsky (7)
23) Bill Clinton (7)
23) Hillary Clinton (7)
19) Michael Moore (7)
19) George Soros (8)
19) Alger Hiss (8)
19) Al Sharpton (8)
13) Al Gore (9)
13) Noam Chomsky (9)
13) Richard Nixon (9)
13) Jane Fonda (9)
13) Harry Reid (9)
13) Nancy Pelosi (9)
11) John Wilkes Booth (10)
11) Margaret Sanger (10)
9) Aldrich Ames (11)
9) Timothy McVeigh (11)
7) Ted Kennedy (14)
7) Lyndon Johnson (14)
5) Benedict Arnold (17)
5) Woodrow Wilson (17)
4) The Rosenbergs (19)
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)
2) Barack Obama (23)
1) Jimmy Carter (25)
Really? I'm no fan of either Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, but to rank them among the 13 worst Americans in all of history? That's not just silly, it's absolutely insane. This is too much even for Jim Geraghty of the National Review Online:

I can't believe conservative bloggers put a bunch of garden-variety Democratic politicians so high, when asked to compile a list of the Worst Figures in American History...
I'm no fan of most of the Democrats on the list, and there are some good picks. But most of the modern political figures look ridiculous when we compare their actions to some of America's most really notorious figures.

No Al Capone? No Machine Gun Kelly or the Lindbergh baby kidnappers?

No Jefferson Davis or anyone else associated with the Confederacy beyond John Wilkes Booth? Speaking of presidential assassins, no Lee Harvey Oswald? (Oh, I know, I know, he was the fall guy for the big conspiracy.) Aaron Burr gets a pass for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel?

Isn't Johnny Walker Lindh or Robert Hanssen a more clear-cut case than Jane Fonda or either of the Clintons?

No Charles Manson? Come on. You're really telling me Al Sharpton and Michael Moore outrank somebody like Jeffrey Dahmer, who ate people? Race-baiting and rabble-rousing outrank cannibalism?

No Jim Jones (cult leader, not national security adviser) or David Koresh?

Not one villain from America's business world? No ruthless layoff king like "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap? No Ken Lay? Bernie Madoff couldn't reach the top 20?

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/08/the_right_wing_mindset_in_a_nu.php

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from Free Thinker:

...I'm no fan of either Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, but to rank them among the 13 worst Americans in all of history? That's not just silly, it's absolutely insane...

You're probably right. I'd put them in the top 25 or so.

 

[bugscoe]

Quote from Lucrum:

You're probably right. I'd put them in the top 25 or so.

Considering Pelosi wants to investigate the families of the 911 victims for opposing the mosque, she should be moved up to #3.