Media Matters

….as in MSM analysis, not David Brock’s shop.

I find Rupert Murdoch’s observations on the news business to be predicatable, amusing and ironic considering the source. Murdoch’s mega media outlets have distinguished themselves by appealing to the lowest common denominator; acting as groveling apologists for the egregious regime in Beijing; spreading the crudest, vilest rumors about the Clintons while presenting them as “fact; and hiring an assortment of right wing blowhards to spout their nonsense while beating up on the so-called “liberals” invited on the channel to be used as cannon fodder and objects of ridicule.

I’ve seen some commentary on this blog defending Fox “News” while alluding to the New World Order and other assorted tinfoil hat nonsense (there’s also some over-the-top praise for our current disgrace of our soon-to-be-ex-President and the vile members of his administration coupled with serious revisionism going on vis a vis his legacy, but that’s a topic for another post). While it’s true that Fox managed to avoid going around the bend for Obama during the primaries and should be credited for being one of the sole media outlets that attempted to vet the frontrunner, well, even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. But the clock is still broken.

There’s a fine line between respecting your audience and pandering. Upon abandoning his political consulting career, Roger Ailes, Murdoch’s repellent minion/hatchet man/water carrier, made his mark by creating what I call the “Archie Bunker” talking heads; in other words, hiring white Irish male millionaire on-air personalities to appeal to the lunchpail crowd by railing against the wealthy (!), effete elites with their lattes and their fancy Ivy League educations; the snobs with their subscriptions to the New Yorker and their fondness for Bill Moyers and all things French whose greatest source of amusement is mocking and trampling on The Little Guy. Ailes created Chris Matthews at America’s Talking/CNBC, then foisted Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity on an unsuspecting world. And for some reason audiences bought into this con.

I’m thinking Murdoch is being too cute by half with regards to his comments about blogs. Any consumer of television over the past decade knows that the MSM have been too quick to print or go to air with half-baked rumors gleaned from blogs, whether you’re talking about Fox during impeachment not only using Drudge as a primary source but giving him his own show, or more recently the rest of the herd running with insane “news items” questioning whether Trig Palin’s maternity AND paternity and other assorted bits of nonsense.

On one point we are agreed. The MSM have no one to blame but themselves for this mess. The so-called “respectable” press acts like a school of fish turning as one to follow the alpha fish, or like the mean, popular clique in high school, spreading rumors and ganging up on the kids they’re jealous of. A sorry sight indeed. Cable television executives have worked overtime cloning Fox’s tabloid take on the news and emphasizing opinion over reporting. No wonder audiences are saying “no mas”.