The Foxification Of CNN

8 Signs The Network Is Trying To Tilt Crazy Right

If there's one thing that American media doesn't need, it's another Fox News. The first one is already doing a stellar job of advancing the GOP agenda.

By Mark Howard
October 12, 2011
Courtesy Of "Alter Net"

In the fiercely competitive world of cable news, the players have been jockeying for position as they battle for viewers and advertisers. Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, each with their own models of programming, seek to gain scale and influence.

Fox News, we know, has established its place as the leader in right-wing advocacy and Republican PR. MSNBC, while not a full-fledged counter to Fox, has allotted a fair portion of its programming to more liberally leaning fare. But CNN, the innovator and one-time leader in cable news, has wavered between those poles emerging as somewhat of a journalistic mutant – neither left nor right nor neutral.

The past year, however, CNN has been attempting to fashion a more recognizable persona. The shift coincides with the promotion of Ken Jautz, formerly the president of CNN’s sister network, HLN. At HLN Jautz successed in raising both ratings and revenue by turning the channel into a trashy TV tabloid reliant on celebrity gossip and characters like Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck (yes, Jautz gave Beck his first job on television).

interview he gave after his promotion was announced Jautz delivered a tribute to Fox News and a preview of what to expect from his tenure saying that he does not believe that “facts-only” programming will work. True to his word he has endeavored to give CNN a shiny Fox-like hue and assembled a team that shares his aversion to facts.

Now presiding over CNN, Jautz has brought his brash and distinctively commercial style to the network that once aspired to be a model of journalistic integrity. He is employing the same sensationalist philosophy at CNN that brought him success at HLN, along with a decidedly conservative bent. In an 

Here are some examples of the lowlights of the Jautz era at CNN:

1) First and foremost, Jautz brought Glenn Beck into the CNN family saying that “Glenn’s style is self-deprecating, cordial…not confrontational.” That sort of delusional analysis ought to have been a red flag that disqualified Jautz from running a news network.

2) Erick Erickson, the RedState blogger who once called Supreme Court Justice David Souter a Goat-f**king child molester, became a CNN political commentator. Since his hiring he has cheered the S&P’s downgrading of the U.S. credit rating and agreed with Rick Perry that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.

be a contributor. Loesch has alleged that President Obama “sided with terrorists,” and she embraced the overt bigotry of notorious Islamaphobe Pamela Geller. Breitbart, of course is famous for promoting deceptively edited videos that smeared ACORN, NPR, Shirley Sherrod and even CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau. Loesch was hired by CNN after these events were widely known.

3) CNN signed Dana Loesch, the editor of Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism, to 

4) Jautz brought Erin Burnett over from CNBC. In her debut she broadcast a story that portrayed the protesters on Wall Street as unfocused neo-hippies that didn’t understand the issues they were protesting. Burnett would have fit in well on the curvy couch of Fox & Friends where they routinely disparage the movement without ever addressing the substance of it.

5) CNN had the distinction of being the only network to air Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party Caucus response to the State of the Union Address. Even Fox didn’t think it was worthy of live coverage. The result is that CNN had two opposing viewpoints to the President’s address, one from the GOP and one from the Tea Party which, of course, is just an affiliate of the GOP. We’re still waiting for CNN to air a response from the Progressive Caucus or MoveOn.org.

6) Another new CNN political analyst is Will Cain, who CNN acquired from the ultra-conservative National Review. And if that credential isn’t far enough out in right field, Cain just announced that he is joining Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze.

7) CNN locked arms with the Tea Party to co-host a Republican presidential primary debate. By choosing Tea Party Express as their partner they embraced a dubious organization that was booted out of the Tea Party Federation due to the racist commentaries of a spokesman. It was also revealed that most of the funds raised from donations wound up in the coffers of Russo, Marsh, the Republican PR firm that founded Tea Party Express.

8) Former Fox News anchor and Bill O’Reilly fill-in, E.D. Hill, is now a CNN contributor. Hill was dumped by Fox after a segment that showed President Obama giving the First Lady a friendly fist bump and Hill called it a “terrorist fist jab.”

So CNN is now employing Fox News rejects, Andrew Breitbart lieutenants, and Glenn Beck associates. On the flip side, former CNN reporters Ed Henry and John Roberts are now comfortably ensconced at Fox News. The lines between CNN and Fox News are blurring to the point where the networks are becoming indistinguishable. And most of this occurred since Ken Jautz assumed the helm of CNN.

If there is one thing that American media doesn’t need, it’s another Fox News. The first one is already doing a stellar job of misinforming the public and advancing the agenda of the Republican Party. What’s more, emulating Fox has done nothing for CNN’s ratings. Why should it? Viewers who are in the market for dumbed-down histrionics, Democrat bashing, and a steady diet of right-wing falsehoods, already have a proven provider. Fox’s audience has shown that they are not the least bit interested in looking for the remote that slipped under the sofa years ago. They don’t even change the channel when their heroes are just a click down the dial.

Consequently, if CNN is gaining nothing from reshaping their editorial slant to mirror Fox, the only conclusion is that they are deliberately making a hard right turn because that is the direction they want to go. But this path has only resulted in their dropping to third place behind Fox and MSNBC. If CNN ever hopes to regain some of the luster of their glory days, they will need to differentiate themselves from Fox. They might want to take a stab at journalism. That would be novel in these days of advocacy tabloidism.

Mark Howard is an artist and author and the publisher of News Corpse. His political and socially disruptive artwork has been displayed internationally.

Mass Media, Or Public Media?

'Social network sites have made citizens audible and visible to one another,' Hind writes  [GALLO/GETTY]


The Way Communication Is Organised Is Developing As Public Societies Encourage Deliberations Between Equals.

By Dan Hind
Last Modified: 20 Oct 2011 10:06
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"


In his 1956 book The Power Elite the American sociologist C. Wright Mills sketched the difference between a 'public society' and a 'mass society'. He thought this difference could best be understood in terms of the characteristic forms of communication found in each.

In a public society the archetype of communication is a conversation between equals where 'virtually as many people express opinions as receive them' and 'communications are so organised that there is a chance immediately and effectively to answer any opinion expressed in public'. A public, as opposed to a mass, can translate its opinions into effective action. It can change policy as its opinions change. In a mass society, on the other hand, the most characteristic form of communication is a broadcast that delivers one unanswerable voice to millions of quiet and attentive listeners. There is little or no scope for individuals to answer back to the messages they receive. There is certainly no way that the inhabitants of a mass society can translate their opinions into politically effective action.

For much of the time after Mills wrote The Power Elite the trend in the West was towards greater massification. In America, the formal and informal publics that convened to discuss matters of shared concern were, to some extent, supplanted by televised and heavily stage-managed events - the studio audience replaced the town hall meeting. In Britain, political parties, which once provided at least some scope for public discussion in Mills’ sense, became increasingly centralised. Party conferences ceased to be venues for debates about policy and active membership dwindled.

More generally, politicians in both country adopted techniques and personnel from the entertainment and public relations industry and aspired to create the illusion of public engagement while suppressing its potential to disrupt elite decision-making. For a while it seemed that new technologies would only provide them with new resources for manipulation and surveillance.

But there are now encouraging signs that a public society is reviving. In part this is because modern communications technology has made it possible for at least some groups to communicate without relying on broadcast and print media. Social network sites have made citizens audible and visible to one another. In the run up to the occupation of the City of London, for example, thousands of people used a Facebook page to express their intention to show up. Occupations in hundreds of other cities have taken advantage of social media in similar ways.

To a much greater extent, though, something like a public society is emerging because the major media no longer seem able to describe the world accurately. The ongoing financial crisis in particular has done huge damage to the prestige of the major news operations. They didn’t see it coming. They misunderstood it when it happened. And they still struggle to state the blindingly obvious, that the private credit system has failed, and that banking must now come under effective democratic control.

As a result of these shortcomings in the media, politically motivated publics are starting to assemble online and in the real world. And this, I think, is what is driving the occupations movement - the recognition that the descriptions on offer in the mainstream media don't make sense, that the machinery of representative politics is broken, and that these are two aspects of the same problem.

When people meet at the occupations they adopt techniques for discussion and deliberation that aspire to what C. Wright Mills would have called public communication. The assemblies that have sprung up are explicitly intended to ensure that ' virtually as many people express opinions as receive them'. The occupiers are seeking to create a shared understanding that in turn informs a political programme, that is, to communicate in publicly effectual ways.

So far these innovations and the conversations between equals they make possible have barely featured in the world of broadcast publicity, the information system that most people rely on most of the time. Television likes to draw on a stable spectrum of supposedly legitimate opinion to frame debates about public policy. It has, for the most part, never occurred to them that they might better spend their time facilitating discussion between citizens. Consider this - when did you last see two 'ordinary people' discuss any matter of public interest at length on television?

A Deliberating Public

Any process of free deliberation can easily be misrepresented and many in the conventional media are busy doing so. This is hardly surprising. The occupations have declared the spectrum of opinion visible in the broadcast media inadequate and indeed unreal. They are discussing first principles on the basis of equality and mutual recognition.

It will take time for some journalists to recognise that their current working assumptions and practises are part of the problem the assemblies are seeking to remedy.

A deliberating public is not an organised and disciplined group, which can be expected to remain unswervingly on message. So it is a simple matter to find cranks and to declare that they somehow embody the meaning of an occupation. When they aren’t accusing them of deranged extremism, broadcasters and others sometimes decide that the occupiers are incoherent and confused, which is another way of criticising a participatory model for not adopting the message control preferred by modern political parties and corporate public relations departments.

Indeed, for the most part, the major media cannot bring itself to notice the political intent of occupation-and-assembly, to register that what is being tried is another kind of politics, which entails a different model of communication. Yet this is a movement with a long history. Though significant numbers of people in Britain and the United States are only beginning to master the language of assemblies and working groups, citizens in Latin America have been building participatory forms for decades.

Journalists are not stupid. They must know that their audiences will not be satisfied for much longer with coverage that defers to a ridiculous political and economic establishment while mocking or misrepresenting serious and well-intentioned citizens. It is past time that journalists found ways of reporting that support public participation.

They have been trained to convey the views of the decision-makers inside to the masses outside. But rather than watch a simulacrum of public life, more and more people are looking to achieve public status for themselves. They are looking for media that acknowledges this and helps the citizen body to form itself, to clarify its opinions, and act as it thinks best.

The challenge for many journalists, in other words, is to describe what is happening in front of their eyes. If they choose to remain committed to their understanding of how communications should be organised, if they remain wedded to their privileges as operatives in the mass media, they risk irrelevance. For the occupations are not demonstrations or mobs. They are an attempt to create a public society.

Dan Hind has worked in publishing since 1998 and is the author of two well-acclaimed books: The Return of the Public and The Threat to Reason. He is also a regular contributor to The Guardian.

How Television Can Make You Believe Things That Aren't True

Newly published research suggests nuggets of misinformation embedded in a fictional television program can seep into our brains and lodge there as perceived facts.

By Tom Jacobs
October 12, 2011
Courtesy Of "Alter Net"

Our beliefs about the world are shaped by many factors. The courses we took in college. The lessons we learned from our families.

And, of course, the prime-time courtroom drama we watched a couple of weeks back.

Newly published research suggests nuggets of misinformation embedded in a fictional television program can seep into our brains and lodge there as perceived facts. What’s more, this troubling dynamic seems to occur even when our initial response is skepticism.

That’s the conclusion of a study published in the journal Human Communication Research. It asserts that, immediately after watching a show containing a questionable piece of information, we’re aware of where the assertion came from, and take it with an appropriate grain of salt. But this all-important skepticism diminishes over time, as our memory of where we heard the fact or falsehood in question dims.

the narrative of the show.

A research team led by the University of Utah’s Jakob Jensen conducted an experiment in which 147 students watched a specific episode of the David E. Kelley drama Boston Legal. Immediately afterward, they completed a survey in which they revealed how strongly they related to the characters, how closely they felt the show reflected reality, and the degree to which they felt transported into 

Half also completed a separate set of questions, including their opinion on the effectiveness of EpiPens — devices that deliver a measured dose of ephinephrine to counter the effects of a severe allergic reaction. In the episode, use of the device failed to stop such a reaction, resulting in a child’s sudden death — a highly unlikely scenario that outraged an advocacy group.

The study participants were emailed a follow-up survey two weeks after watching the show. Those who did not receive the second set of questions, including the one on the effectiveness of EpiPens, filled it out at that time.

The results: “Individuals queried two weeks after exposure to the television program were more likely to endorse the false belief than those queried immediately after exposure.”

These findings are consistent with those of a 2007 study, which similarly found the persuasive effects of fictional narratives increase over time. In that case, the misinformation was embedded in a written story.

“Two studies have now shown that fiction (written and televised) can produce a delayed message effect,” Jensen and his colleagues write. This is troubling, they add, noting, “People are bombarded by mass media every day all over the world, and a sizeable (and growing) body of mass communication research has demonstrated that much of this content is distorted in a multitude of ways.”

Indeed, ABC — the same network that ran Boston Legal — was widely criticized in 2008 when an episode of another legal drama, Eli Stone,suggested a link between autism and a vaccine. While this link has beendefinitively debunked, this research points to one reason it and other falsehoods continue to circulate.

The “sleeper effect” — the notion we can hold onto a piece of information while gradually forgetting it came from an unreliable source — was first proposed in the late 1940s, and a meta-analysis in 2004 confirmed its validity. Importantly, Jenkins notes that in both his study (featuring misinformation conveyed in a fictional television program) and the 2007 paper (where a falsehood was presented as part of a written work of fiction), the size of this effect was greater than that found in the 2004 meta-analysis.

This suggests to him that delayed-message effects “may be larger and meaningfully different” in cases where the misinformation is presented in fictional form. In other words, we may be particularly susceptible to believing falsehoods originally conveyed to us through fiction, perhaps because the context — the TV episode or short story in question — is more likely to fall from our minds.

So here’s yet another reason to continually question your beliefs: It turns out your primary source on certain subjects may be James Spader.

Tom Jacobs is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years experience at daily newspapers. He has served as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Santa Barbara News-Press. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Ventura County Star.

CIA Pitches Scripts To Hollywood

By Mark Riffee
September 16, 2011 | 6:30 am |
Courtesy Of "Wired Magazine"

Are you an aspiring filmmaker who wants to produce a spy thriller? Well, you’re in luck because the CIA has a pile of script ideas lying around.

Ironic, you say, that an organization known for secrecy is doling out helpful hints to Hollywood? The CIA doesn’t think so. For them it’s all about image control. And they’re just the start of it. The Department of Defense and just about every branch of the military has an entertainment industry liaison similar to the CIA’s.

If you want to make a war film and need a fleet of F-22s, a crowd of Marines, or a Navy aircraft carrier, just call up the Department of Defense’s entertainment media office and they’ll tell you if the Army can spare that M1A1 Abrams tank you’ve always wanted for a day or two of filming.

“The scripts we get are only the writer’s idea of how the Department of Defense operates,” Vince Ogilvie, deputy director of the Defense Department’s entertainment liaison office, told Danger Room. “We make sure the Department and facilities and people are portrayed in the most accurate and positive light possible.”

Hollywood has been working with government organizations to make more credible films for years (for instance, Jerry Bruckheimer and Paramount Pictures worked closely with the Pentagon when filming the 1986 blockbuster “Top Gun”). But the phenomenon is under newfound scrutiny. There was a bit of a kerfuffle recently when some in the press and in Congress speculated about whether the government will give Sony Pictures any pointers while they make a film about the killing of Osama bin Laden.

In a letter to the Defense Department and CIA last month, Rep. Peter King expressed outrage at the Pentagon’s relationship with the film’s director, Kathyrn Bigelow. King claimed that she had already been made privy to sensitive information that could put American lives at risk. (King may have also have been thinking about the fact that the movie is scheduled to hit theaters one month before America decides whether or not to reelect President Obama.)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney assured the media that the Pentagon does not discuss classified information and suggested that King could work on “more important things to discuss than a movie.”

Ogilvie told Danger Room that until the Pentagon sees a completed script, they won’t make a decision on whether they’ll assist Bigelow. Standard procedure is to review the script, make notes on what the Defense Department would like changed, and kick it back to the producer. If the changes are made, the military will provide whatever help they can — declassified information, equipment, personnel, etc. — for a price. If an agreement can’t be reached, the project is either scrapped or made without Pentagon help.

“We try to find a middle ground,” said Ogilvie. “We want the portrayal of the military to show professionalism, cohesiveness, jointness, and dedication.” He cited NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, two shows the Pentagon has collaborated on, as examples of entertainment in which bad behavior in the military is often depicted, but at the end of each storyline, someone always takes action to correct it. In other words, the U.S. government wants us to know that the military is not made up of selfish rogues and the CIA doesn’t exclusively employ people who look like Brian Cox.

“We want these movies to help us in terms of recruitment and retention,” said Ogilvie.

OK, fair enough I guess, but why has the Defense Department recently partnered with 20th Century Fox to make an X-Men/U.S. Army ad or with explosion-enthusiast Michael Bay to make all three Transformersmovies? In The Washington Post, David Sirota suggests entertainment like this is “government-subsidized propaganda.”

Ogilvie assures Danger Room that the Pentagon’s Hollywood ventures are much more innocent than that. Sure, they’d like to see a boost in military support, but it really all comes back to accuracy in terms of standard operating procedures — “whether it be a combat mission in Iraq or how we might fight a three-legged alien in outer space.”

While our military is busy pondering defense strategies against Camaro-bots and aliens, I’ll do something equally worthwhile and tweak one of the CIA’s “inspirations for future storylines” into my first feature-length action flick: “The Ten Commandments of Counterintelligence.” I’m thinking early-20th-century religious allegory with lots of explosions, fedoras, and Mel Gibson. But if Mel’s busy, I’ll just start an indie band called “Robert Fulton’s Skyhook and Operation Cold Feet,” named after one of the Agency’s canned movie treatments. Thanks, CIA! You’re my heroes!

Mark Riffee is a journalism grad student at NYU who has written for The New York Times Local East Village and produced videos for the New York Daily News.
Follow @markriffee on Twitter.

FEAR INC

Courtesy Of "Keith Olbermann"

The Media Is The Enemy

Of Peace, Liberty, and The Truth

By Justin Raimondo,
August 17, 2011
Courtesy Of "Anti-War"

Ron Paul is getting more publicity out of not getting publicity in the wake of hisvirtual tie with Bachmann in the Ames poll than he’s gotten to date. Suddenly everyone’s noticing the “mainstream” media is trying very hard not to notice the twelve-term Texas congressman and libertarian icon, despite his success inquadrupling his previous Iowa showing and barely being edged out by Bachmann.Jon Stewart’s takedown of the Ron Paul media blackout is devastating, and, for the most part, funny. Barring that crack about Paul being “the ‘Patient Zero’ of the Tea Party” – likening tea partiers to HIV-positives is offensive on so many levels, I don’t know where to start – Stewart’s critique of the anti-Paul bias in the mainstream media is 100 percent accurate. Roger Simon, writing in Politico, found it “amazing” and “disturbing” that “Paul almost wins the thing and he remains poison.”

To us long-time Paul-watchers, who have witnessed this media blackout in operation for years – and are way beyond being merely “disturbed” by it – there is nothing in the least bit amazing about the media’s hostility to Paul. The latest snub is merely a repetition of what has been the Party Line, a line that – like Paul himself – crosses ideological boundaries, and Stewart’s takedown – which spliced together footage of both CNN and Fox News anchors, wearing identical smirks, disdainfully dismissing Paul – showed this red media/blue media united front in action.

Claims of media bias come from both sides of the political spectrum: the left has its Chomskyite analysis of the important role played by the media in “manufacturing consent,” and the right has been crying – with some justification – “liberal media bias” since time immemorial. Journalists used to not take any of this seriously, because they, after all, are objective observers – or at least they used to be, before the advent of advocacy journalism in the style of Fox News and MSNBC. The cable news industry still hides behind this disinterested façade, but with the changes in the news media itself this pretense is getting harder to defend.

I think Ron himself had the right analysis of how and why the media blackout is so brazen: As he told Simon:

“’They [the media] believe this guy is dangerous to the status quo,’ Paul said, ‘but that is a reason to be more energized… In his interview with me, Paul stressed his ‘peace’ message — he wants our troops brought home from foreign soil — and believes that and his fiscal conservatism will gain him supporters. ‘We are trying to reverse 100 years of history, the change from a republic to an empire, the change to tax and spending, who wants to admit that?’ Paul said. ‘Who wants to admit we don’t have to be policeman of the world?’”

Paul is correct to home in on his foreign policy views to explain why the “analysts” and Washington know-it-alls insist he “has no chance of winning the Republican nomination,” as the Wall Street Journal averred. The conventional wisdom is, asAaron Blake put it so succinctly in the Washington Post:

“Despite his strong showing at Ames, Paul is still given virtually no chance to win the Republican nomination as his libertarian-leaning brand of politics and distance from most Republicans on foreign policy matters make it difficult for him to win over mainstream GOPers.”

A few lines down, however, and we read:

“Paul’s vote total was also three and a half times as large as his showing four years ago and almost 40 percent of the total vote he got in the 2008 Iowa caucuses – where turnout is usually more than 10 times as high as the straw poll. Paul also appears to be benefiting as the most full-throated opponent of U.S. involvement abroad from an increase in anti-war sentiment in the GOP.”

Either Paul’s anti-interventionist views virtually rule him out as a potential GOP presidential nominee, or else his views benefit him – Blake can’t have it both ways. That he’s desperately trying to is evidence of some confusion, as well as an ingrained bias. Confusion because journalists are not omniscient: they’re just ordinary people, who often don’t have the foresight to see new trends developing even as they are occurring – although you’d think that would be the core of a reporter’s job, especially one who specializes in politics. The breakdown of the right-left, red-blue, Fox-MSNBC paradigm is an ongoing process, one bound to take unexpected turns – and take many by surprise, up to and including those, like Paul, in the forefront of this trend.

I don’t think anyone has been more astonished by his success than Ron Paul. He is clearly thrilled at the sight of thousands of young people cheering him on and chanting “End the Fed!” at campus rallies across the nation. I don’t think he expected the outpouring of support that greeted his announcement: in fundraising capabilitiesalone, he’s a top tier candidate no matter what the Beltway pundits say.

The media’s refusal to report Paul’s growing support, beyond grudging acknowledgement that he’s come in from “the fringe,” reflects its institutional bias in favor of the right-left red-blue narrative that has, up until now, dominated American politics, and in which so much of the news industry is heavily invested. This narrative doesn’t allow for any significant deviations, and certainly not on the presidential level: all must submit to its tyranny, in spite of its archaic and increasingly obstructionist character. What it obstructs is any meaningful challenge to the functioning of the Welfare-Warfare State. If one party is in power, welfare is given more weight than warfare, if the other takes the throne, then welfare is given the axe. In any case, these two aspects of the modern American state are inextricably intertwined, as “defense” spending in the age of empire becomes just another dollop of pork to be ladled out tocorporate and political interests – and welfare becomes a way to keep the disgruntled quiescent in wartime.

Think of the media as the Greek chorus to the two “majors,” with different media actors cheerleading one party and razzing the other – but never straying outside the bounds of the red-blue narrative, with its rigid definitions and litmus tests. This mindset is encoded in the two-party system, and institutionalized in our ballot access laws, which privilege the two “major” parties – the very same two parties that have led us down the path to endless war and imminent bankruptcy, and are now running away from their dual responsibility for the present crisis.

In this indirect but not insignificant sense, then, the “mainstream” media is an arm of the State, and, indeed, not only acts to police the political discourse, but reports government propaganda as if it were fact. We saw how this worked during the run-upto the Iraq war, when the Bush regime played the New York Times and its “mainstream” colleagues with ease, using the front page of the Times as a veritable bulletin board of government talking points. The Bush administration may have lied us into war, but the supposedly “liberal” media facilitated it in every possible way, acting like stenographers taking dictation rather than journalists out to discover the truth.

That these same people have a real problem reporting on a growing anti-war, anti-Washington movement fast taking hold in the GOP and in the general population is not at all surprising. That’s because the mainstream media is the enemy of all these things, invested as they are in sucking up to power and vaunting their role as court “intellectuals.” No one should be either amazed or disturbed that they’re downplayingthe success of the system’s foremost opponent: after all, that’s their job.

Our job, here at Antiwar.com, is precisely the opposite. Our job is to expose the schemes and debunk the lies of the War Party and the apologists for Power. Back when the mainstream media were “reporting” Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction,” Antiwar.com reported the real facts: that there were no such weapons, as President Bush was forced to finally admit. The media fell for it because they wanted to fall for it: it made their job easier, it made them friends at court, and it gave them something exciting to write about. Doubters were sidelined as cranks, or Saddam sympathizers.

The media is a reliable instrument of government just as surely as if it were an official agency, like the Voice of America: it is owned by corporate entities entirely dependenton the good graces of government officials, and whose natural inclinations are to cozy up to Power rather than challenge it. That’s why the new internet-based media is so disturbing to these mandarins, whose opinions are no longer automatically elevated to holy writ. Antiwar.com is in the forefront of this new media wave – but we need your help to capitalize on this success and subvert the red-blue media narrative.

The “mainstream” media apologists for the status quo have deep corporate pockets, while we upstarts have some ways to go before we catch up, to put it in considerably understated terms. We depend on you, our readers, for the support we need to continue the kind of independent journalism so woefully lacking in the “mainstream.”

Yes, I know the economy is bad, and everyone is hurting – but this is important. This is our chance – our only chance – to break through the media blackout and take back our country from the War Party. Our job is never done, and yet we must interrupt it to raise the funds we need to carry on – because we have creditors demanding payment we couldn’t have put off launching our current fundraising drive another day. We must make our goal of $100,000 – a pittance compared to what the War Party spends. But then again we don’t have to spend millions, like they do, because we have the truth on our side.

No, we don’t need millions, but we do need thousands – one-hundred thousand, to be exact, and we can’t do it without you. For fifteen years, our readers have been our sole source of support. We don’t have any big foundations or eccentric billionaires giving us six-figure contributions: hundreds and by now thousands of individuals from every part of the political spectrum have sent in their tax-deductible contributions, and sustained us up until this point. This has guaranteed our editorial independence, but it makes us work harder in order to retain your support – support which, in my humble opinion, I think we’ve more than earned.

Now we’re asking our readers and supporters to come through again – and the need has never been greater. We’re working to undermine – and bypass – the same media bias that has sent news of Ron Paul’s success down the Memory Hole. They can’t bear that he’s rising in the polls because they can’t bear a world where their opinions and prejudices are not the received wisdom – so won’t you help us make life just a little bit more unbearable for them?

Please – give as much as you can, as soon as you can. The media is our enemy: this much we know. The question is: will we have the intelligence and perseverance to forge our own media, and take our case to the American people?

Our fate – the fate of peace and liberty in our time – is in your hands.

Murdoch's Ambitions In The Middle East

Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp scandal is sending shock waves across the UK, as protesters reject the mogul's denial of reponsibility for criminal behaviour within his empire [GALLO/GETTY]


With His Media Empire Under Fire In The west, NewsCorp Chief Eyes The Middle East Market.

By Dahr Jamail
Last Modified: 20 Jul 2011 14:59
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

Embroiled in a scandal that has global implications, Rupert Murdoch's media empire is under fire due to the ongoing fallout resulting from the News of the World scandal.

But while News Corp remains under heavy scrutiny in the UK, US, and the rest of the West, the launch of Abu Dhabi-based Arabic language news channel Sky News Arabia is still on track.

For someone interested in assisting in starting a television network with a planned initial reach of 50 million viewers across the Middle East, Murdoch has an interesting perspective on regional issues that affect the would-be consumers of the new Arabic channel.

"My own perspective is simple", Murdoch told the Anti-Defamation League on December 13, 2010. "We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews."

Murdoch emphasised "the importance of good relations between Israel and the United States", stating: "Some believe that if America wants to gain credibility in the Muslim world and advance the cause of peace, Washington needs to put some distance between itself and Israel. My view is the opposite."

In a speech Murdoch gave when receiving the American Jewish Committee's National Human Relations Award in March 2009, less than three months after the end of Israel's bombardment of Gaza, he referenced Gaza and said: "The free world makes a terrible mistake if we deceive ourselves into thinking this is not our fight. In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace ... who reject freedom."

Ari Rabin-Havt, Executive Vice President of the media watchdog group Media Matters, says Murdoch's Fox News in the US "is one of the most bigoted, anti-Muslim channels on TV".

"Their hosts, contributors, and guests were vocal opponents of the planned building of an Islamic cultural centre near ground zero," Rabin-Havt told Al Jazeera. "One of those guests was anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Pam Geller, who compared the centre to building a Ku Klux Klan 'shrine' near a black church in Alabama."

Murdoch's Middle East Connection
Billionaire Prince Walid bin Talal bin Abdelaziz Al-Saud, a nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, has, according toForbes magazine, a net worth estimated to be at least $19.6bn. This makes him the 26th wealthiest person on the planet, as well as the richest man in Saudi Arabia.

He is also the second biggest shareholder (at seven per cent) in News Corporation, only behind Murdoch himself.

During a recent interview on his yacht with the BBC's Newsnight, Prince Walid declared himself to be a "good friend" of Rupert Murdoch and his son James, and staunchly defended the men amid the ongoing NewsCorp scandal.

Saudi billionaire Prince Walid (centre) talks to his assistant, as Rupert Murdoch watches, before the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in March 2010 [REUTERS]

It is noteworthy that,while Prince Walid is the second largest shareholder in News Corp, Murdoch is also a major shareholder (ten per cent) in Prince Walid's Rotana Media Group based in the Middle East. As recently as this May, Murdoch's conglomerate took a significant stake in Prince Walid's film, TV, and music business, a move that deepened the financial relationship between the two men.

Rotana television broadcasts in Saudi Arabia and via satellite to the Arab World and Arab Diaspora, and includes Fox (Middle East), a Fox film channel - and is better known for broadcasting US films, television and music videos.

Even though Murdoch is in business with Prince Walid, and the two men have a mutually beneficial relationship, many of his personal views and the views of his media outlets take a very adversarial stance towards the Arab and Muslim world.

"They [Muslims] are much harder to integrate into a community than the average Indian or Chinese or Japanese even," Murdoch told the Sydney Morning Herald on June 26, 2006.

Bill O'Reilly, a leading host on Murdoch's Fox News channel, said, during his broadcast on October 18, 2010: "Folks are fed up with politically correct nonsense. There's no question there is a Muslim problem in the world," and "most Americans well understand the danger coming out of the Muslim world". The on-screen text read: "The Muslim Dilemma." The next day, O'Reilly repeated the claim that there was "a Muslim problem in the world".

Last spring, at the exclusive three-day Abu Dhabi Media Summit, Murdoch hinted:

"We've also been broadcasting some of our Fox International Channels. More recently, we took another step by investing in a local media company that also is the world's largest producer of Arab music. The company is called Rotana. To be frank, Rotana does not really need our financing. We are partnering with Rotana for something more ambitious."

The Show Must Go On?

Despite the phone hacking scandal in the UK, Sky News Arabia, a 50/50 joint venture with BSkyB and the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation, has plans to launch next spring as a 24-hour news channel.

Days after the closing of the News of the World newspaper, senior executives Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton resigned over the scandal.

Their resignations came after Prince Walid urged Murdoch and his son James to "cooperate fully" with inquiries into the scandal.

"If the indications are for [Mrs Brooks'] involvement in this matter … for sure she has to go, you bet she has to go," Prince Walid told Newsnight.

Possibly underscoring Prince Walid's power in News Corp, fewer than 24 hours after that interview was broadcast, it was announced Brooks had resigned from her position as chief executive of News International.

Last week, Prince Walid said he welcomed the decision to close the News of the World.

"The rotten and defective apple [News of the World] has been eliminated by management," he told Forbes magazine via text message. "Moreover, I as shareholder and the Murdochs won't tolerate any unethical behaviour, and the fact that the newspaper was shut down is conclusive proof that News Corp wants to put this case behind it, irrespective of the BSkyB takeover. Plus, News [Corp] is a lot bigger than a newspaper."

Muhammad Ahmad, a Glasgow-based media scholar who has taught journalism and politics at the University of Stirling, disagrees with Prince Walid's "rotten apple" theory.

"The strangeness of the fact that a Saudi is the second biggest NewsCorp stockholder, and he has never taken any actions to curb or censor bad journalism, and there is no regulation whatsoever, is troubling," Ahmad told Al Jazeera. "You have a ruthless media operation, especially now when it is being called out, and they were unapologetic to begin with. This is not a question of some bad apples. News Corp is a corrupt institution, to its foundations, and now it's trying to get control over Sky Arabia. This should be outrageous for anyone, especially viewers."

The channel intends to broadcast to more than 50 million households across the Middle East and North Africa region, according to network executives. It will be based in Abu Dhabi, with bureaux around the world.

The channel will enter a TV-news market in competition with Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and BBC Arabic, among others.

Professor David Miller, a sociologist at Scotland's Strathclyde University and co-founder of the media watchdog group Spinwatch, told Al Jazeera that he feels the Sky News Arabia venture is "unsafe".

"I don't know what the regulating authority would be in this case, but it certainly does not bode well for a news organisation to have Sky or NewsCorp involved at all."

Follow Dahr Jamail on Twitter: @DahrJamail