In Time, Rupert Murdoch claimed to "play it absolutely straight" like "Brit Hume and his team on the nightly news"
In the July 9 issue of its magazine, Time reported that when asked if the Fox News Channel is "an expression of his political views," News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch answered: "Yes! No! Yes and no. The commentators are not. Bill O'Reilly certainly not. Geraldo Rivera certainly not. But Brit Hume and his team on the nightly news? Yes. They play it absolutely straight!" Time, which interviewed Murdoch for the magazine's cover story, offered no challenge to this claim despite the fact that Hume, Fox News' Washington bureau managing editor, and "his team" on Fox News' Special Report have been prolific sources of conservative misinformation. Fox News Channel is a subsidiary of News Corp.
Additionally, Time offered two mutually inconsistent descriptions of Murdoch -- describing him both as "the ultimate outsider," and as someone "who influences Prime Ministers and Presidents and still poses as a scrappy outsider."
Among Hume's numerous instances of misinformation:
- Hume falsely claimed that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "managed to get" an amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill "passed," and that it "may be the killer amendment that ... ends this bill." The amendment was defeated by a vote of 55-42 -- making it impossible for the measure to have "end[ed]" the immigration bill.
- He likened Senate Democrats investigating the firing of eight U.S. attorneys to "a dog with a new bone."
- He falsely claimed that former President George H.W. Bush never criticized former President Bill Clinton or his administration -- a claim he later corrected.
- He falsely claimed that Franklin Delano Roosevelt advocated replacing Social Security with private accounts.
The reporters and correspondents who regularly appear on Special Report -- presumably the "team on the nightly news" to which Murdoch referred -- have also provided numerous examples of conservative misinformation. Among the more glaring instances:
- Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle repeatedly served up false and baseless assertions regarding the investigation into the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity (here, here, here, here, and here).
- Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron ridiculed Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) during the 2004 presidential campaign by fabricating quotes of Kerry saying, "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" referring to himself as "metrosexual," which were included in a story that appeared on FoxNews.com. Later that day, Fox News Channel issued a retraction and an apology, and the fake story was removed from the website.
- Fox News congressional correspondent Major Garrett falsely claimed that a House select committee report on the response to Hurricane Katrina confirmed his misleading reporting that Louisiana state officials prevented the Red Cross from delivering emergency supplies to evacuees at the Superdome.
From the Time profile, posted on Time.com on June 28:
Should the deal close as expected, Murdoch -- the ultimate outsider, the ink-stained interloper who started in 1953 with a single paper in Adelaide, Australia -- would add capitalism's daily chronicle to an empire that now comprises the Fox movie studio and television network, satellite TV systems in Europe and Asia, more than 100 newspapers and a fast-growing Internet division that includes MySpace, the massively popular social networking site. Two years ago, Murdoch's archrival, Sumner Redstone of Viacom, thought he had a deal for MySpace, but News Corp. swooped in and snatched it, bidding $580 million, $30 million more than Redstone and far more than anyone else thought it was worth. Then the site grew from 20 million members to almost 200 million, Google paid $900 million for the right to advertise on the site, and suddenly Murdoch's price looked cheap -- and Murdoch looked like an Internet visionary. "I love being called that," he says, "but the truth is, I'm just lucky and nimble." He generates his own good fortune by being perhaps the most gifted opportunist in media, a man whose nose for a deal makes him the last of the true media moguls, the one who's still building -- grabbing Dow Jones, dreaming about trading MySpace for a big chunk of Yahoo!, trying to launch a Polish TV network. News Corp.'s voting stock, of which the Murdoch family owns 31%, has gone up 18% in the past year, making him worth $9 billion.
[...]
So let's stipulate that the only thing to prevent Murdoch from wrecking the Journal will be Murdoch himself. (No editorial-oversight committee can stop him.) And let's admit the possibility that he may not be the same scorpion at 76 that he was at 51. He has always said that craving respectability is the beginning of the end for a journalist. "Journalists should think of themselves as outside the Establishment, and owners can't be too worried about what they're told at their country clubs," says the man who influences Prime Ministers and Presidents and still poses as a scrappy outsider. Yet his associates say he's finally considering his legacy and wants to run the Journal impeccably to upgrade his reputation. "He's thinking about his obit," says someone who knows him well.
[...]
I toss out a theory: Fox News is one big reason Murdoch's critics are so incensed by the idea of his controlling the Journal. "Oh, yes!" he cries. So is Fox News an expression of his political views? "Yes! No! Yes and no. The commentators are not. Bill O'Reilly certainly not. Geraldo Rivera certainly not. But Brit Hume and his team on the nightly news? Yes. They play it absolutely straight!"
"Yes! No! Yes and no."
If this is a harbinger of the kind of straight talk that's coming, sign me up!
"But Brit Hume and his team on the nightly news? Yes. They play it absolutely straight!"
OK, now I'm confused. Playing it straight ?Did he just "out" Brit?
Straight to the extreme right on every issue.
Straight is in the eye of the beholder.
The right wingnuts have been blinded by Faux Noise, Murdoch and his yes news, and I use the term grudgingly, men.
The Volatile organic compouds wafting up from the ink on all that cash rots the brain
Well, I might even advocate that the CIA go back to spying on Brit Hume again. They'd find RNC talking points on his tramp stamp.
My nose still burns....
I just spent the last 45 minutes cleaning my keyboard and monitor after stumbling upon the title of this item just after taking a gulp of coffee.
First of all, Hume's anti-liberal sarcasm is exceeded only by his habit of cherry-picking facts and/or creating them as needed.
And, I wonder how many of Rove's missing e-mails have Roger Ailes' or other FOX NEWS addresses in the TO or CC box?
I'd also wager that Rupert's main office (wherever it is) has a larger-than-life-size portrait of William Randolph Hearst prominently displayed.
Finally, if Edward R. Murrow ever came back and saw what FOX NEWS is doing in the name of journalism, he'd never stop throwing up.
I was wondering when LURCH would come up again. Repugnant is a word that comes to mind when I see or hear his name. I understand that his left ear drum is ruptured and tapioca pudding drips all over his left shoulder.
Hume came to FOX straight from the Heritage Foundation, a fascist "think tank". He's been a fascist propagandist his entire career. He was hired by Murdoch and Ailes to "catapult the propaganda" in their non-stop war on liberalism and anything non-sociopathic.
KOs take on Rupert Murdoch.
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=8c15e371-1b08-4fb2-910a-658f5ea89526&f=00&fg=copy
Brit Hume appears on the Fox News Sunday program as a panelist giving his opinions on whatever topics they're discussing. He's the only news anchor that does that. Could you imagine how nuts the conservatives would go if Brian Williams, Katie Couric, or Charles Gibson appeared on their respective networks' Sunday morning shows and proceeded to offer anti-Republican/conservative and pro-Democrat/liberal views while claiming to be objective and non-partisan? Its incredible how Fox "newspeople" continue to get away with doing things they'd condemn if other news organizations did.
Bizzaro world...Media Matters accusing news organizations and people of being biased...now that's funny! But, what's even more fun is reading the bonehead gasbag posts by lefty numb nuts who lap it up. Great to start the morning with a laugh.
Phucus, truth has a liberal bias.
Wow, you do know you are a moron right? This site is upfront about only showing conservative bias, kind of like MRC only shows liberal bias, it doesnt claim to be a news show nor do anything other than what it says it does. Grow up find a functioning cerebral cortex somewhere and get back to us. You are so stupid you give even the rightwing a bad name
Bill Moyer on Rupert Murdoch
If Rupert Murdoch were the Angel Gabriel, you still wouldn't want him owning the sun, the moon, and the stars. That's too much prime real estate for even the pure in heart. But Rupert Murdoch is no saint; he is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity. When it comes to money and power he's carnivorous: all appetite and no taste. He'll eat anything in his path. Politicians become little clay pigeons to be picked off with flattering headlines, generous air time, a book contract or the old-fashioned black jack that never misses: campaign cash. He hires lobbyists the way Imelda Marcos bought shoes, and stacks them in his cavernous closet, along with his conscience; this is the man, remember, who famously kowtowed to the Communist overlords of China, oppressors of their own people, to protect his investments there. The ambitious can't resist his blandishments, Nor his power to get or keep them in office where they can return his favors. Mae West would be green with envy at his little black book of conquests. Tory Margaret Thatcher. Labor's Tony Blair. George Bush. Even Jimmy Carter couldn't say no.. now Bill and Hillary Clinton, who know which side of their bread is buttered, like having it slathered by their new buddy Rupert. Our media and political system has turned into a mutual protection racket. You will not be surprised to learn that Murdoch's company paid little or no federal income tax over the past four years. His powerful portfolio positions him to claim a big stake in Yahoo and his takeover of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, now owned by the Bancroft family, which, like Adam and Eve, the parents of us all, are tempted to sell their birthright for a wormy apple. Murdoch and THE JOURNAL's editorial page are made for each other. They've both pursued the right's corporate and political agenda of the past quarter century. Both venerate what THE JOURNAL editorials call the "animal spirits" of business. But THE JOURNAL's newsroom is another matter - there facts are sacred and independence revered. Rupert Murdoch has told the Bancrofts he'll not meddle with the reporting. But he's accustomed to using journalism as a personal spittoon. In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, he turned the dogs of war loose in the newsrooms of his empire and they howled for blood. Murdoch himself said the greatest thing to come out of the war would be "$20 a barrel for oil." Of course he wasn't the only media mogul to clamor for war. And he's not the first to use journalism to promote his own interests. His worst offense with Fox news is not even its baldly partisan agenda. Far worse is the travesty he's made of its journalism. Fox news huffs and puffs, pontificates and proclaims, but does little serious original reporting. His tabloids sell babes and breasts, gossip and celebrities. Now he's about to bring under the same thumb one of the few national newsrooms remaining in the country. But the problem isn't just Rupert Murdoch. His pursuit of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buy-outs, and other financial legerdemain that are making a shipwreck of journalism. Public minded newspapers are being dumped by their owners for wads of cash or crippled by cost cutting while their broadcasting cousins race to the bottom. Murdoch is just the predator of the hour. The modern maestro of a financial marketplace ruled by money and moguls. Instead of checking the excesses of private and public power, these 21st century barons of the first amendment revel in them; the public be damned.