[NYTr] The Liberal Media: All Rupert, All the Time

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Nation - Aug 13, 2007 issue
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070813/alterman

the liberal media

All Rupert, All the Time

by Eric Alterman

That American journalism is facing so many crises simultaneously has the
effect of immobilizing a concerted response to any of them. From the
Administration's war on the press, to the relentless attention lavished
on Paris and Britney, to the domination of "serious" punditocracy
discourse by friends and acolytes of the discredited Bill Kristol, to
the way the upstart blogosphere has all but destroyed the prestige and
authority of so many of the "wise men" with aggressive fact-checking
and relentless questioning, to the fact that young people are more
likely to be killed by terrorists than to buy a daily newspaper
subscription or turn on the evening news--there are more problems than
any one person can hope to address. Meanwhile, corporate owners are
demanding 20 percent profit margins every year, thereby forcing cuts in
coverage and diminishing the product, giving people even less reason to
read or tune in. All one can really do is press on and hope for a
miracle.

Rupert Murdoch might profitably be viewed as the Frankenstein monster of
this multifaceted identity crisis. Take a look at his flagship American
publication: the New York Post. It's dumb, celebrity-obsessed,
spineless, corrupt, unreliable and reactionary, and even with all its
pandering, it still manages to lose, by its own estimation, $30 million
to $50 million a year.

It's not just the Post that Murdoch operates as a de facto nonprofit.
The Times of London lost $89 million in 2004, and according to a News
Corp. executive quoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article, even the
Australian "doesn't consistently make money." Murdoch doesn't care.
Newspapers make up just 14 percent of News Corp.'s operating income.
What they cost in cash, they more than make up for in political and
propaganda value. Examine any Murdoch newspaper--or book publishing or
network news operation for that matter--and you will find any number of
clear, inarguable abrogations of journalistic principles in the service
of the immediate interests of Murdoch's corporate empire. Sometimes
they curry favor with, or put pressure on, local politicians. Sometimes
they manufacture "grassroots" support for some company-owned enterprise
or Murdoch-friendly politician. Whatever actual news the media
properties report is almost beside the point. When news values and
business interests clash, business wins. When Murdoch's right-wing
ideology and his business clash, business wins. Business always wins.
Hence, Murdoch's editors and producers will sometimes find themselves
forced to slant the news on behalf of center-left politicians like Tony
Blair or Hillary Clinton. It's not that Murdoch is open-minded; it's
that he's single-minded.

The genius of Murdoch's propaganda network is that by aping real news
organizations, he helps himself to all kinds of tax breaks and
constitutional privileges unavailable to nonmedia moguls, to say nothing
of effects on elections and popular opinion. That he devalues the
privileges and responsibilities of the press in America matters little
to Murdoch, who appears to care nothing for traditional notions of
respectability and treats journalists as no more important than the
people who use his newspapers to wrap fish and chips. But it is rather
shocking that so many people who care about the future of journalism
remain silent or sanguine about his impact on one of democracy's most
important professions. The news pages in the Wall Street Journal are
about the smartest and bravest of any newspaper in America. Some
people, like Dow Jones CEO Richard Zannino, enjoy stock holdings that
offer roughly 20 million good reasons to believe that such journalism
can continue unimpeded within the Murdoch empire. But the rest of us
might as well believe in Peter Pan.

For nonconservatives the Dow Jones dance of death with Rupert Murdoch
presents an additional complication. For all the--deserved--praise being
heaped on the paper's news pages of late, its editorial pages already
operate with Murdoch-like sleaze. News staffers frequently wake up to
find their reporting attacked and undermined by the editorial page
ideologues. When speaking anonymously, Journal reporters have been
known to say things like "To have [editorial page editor] Paul Gigot as
our captain is bullshit. It's not for real," and "They're wrong all the
time. They lack credibility to the point that the emperor has no
clothes." And yet without the power and prestige of the newspaper in
which these edit page opinions come wrapped, they would be taken no
more seriously than, say, the latest ravings of Rush Limbaugh or David
Horowitz.

Alas, this very quality makes the edit page a perfect fit for the
Murdoch modus operandi, so it comes as no surprise that Murdoch says he
loves it--or that Fox News scooped up its taxpayer-funded talking-heads
program, which failed so miserably to find an audience when Bush
Administration operatives foisted it on PBS. The silver lining of this
takeover is that when Murdoch destroys the credibility of the
Journal--as he must if it is to fit in with his business plan--he will
be removing the primary pillar of the editorial page's influence as
well. In this regard his ownership is a kind of poisoned chalice.

The editors of The New Republic argue that the Murdoch takeover of Dow
Jones comes at a "pivotal moment for liberals--a time to dial back their
relentless hostility to newspapers and start crusading for them." It's a
lot to ask of liberals to "crusade" on behalf of an enterprise whose
editorial pages routinely call them cowards, traitors and criminals.
Liberals would like nothing better than to take up the cause of the
media's crucial role in rooting out corruption and speaking truth to
power. To do so, however, we need media that take those responsibilities
seriously. And given the MSM's performance on Whitewater, the Clinton
impeachment crisis, the 2000 election, Florida and almost every major
Bush Administration undertaking, that's an awfully tough case to make.
If a Murdoch-owned and -operated Wall Street Journal clarifies matters,
so much the better. Sometimes when God closes a door, He opens a window.