news or propaganda

Why would Rupert Murdock owe any favors to companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin and GM? He's making billions without their help. To truly shift public opinion, you would need the simultaneous cooperation of News Corp, Viacom, Time Warner, ABC-Disney, and Comcast-NBC-Universal. Not even Boeing has that much untraceable cash lying around.

There are plenty of documented cases of media corruption in his era, much worse than anything that has been proven in my lifetime. Distorted journalism led to the Spanish-American War.

 

Karen

I’m not sure of your thinking here?

I mean if you have a free market, neo-liberal outlook and push that viewpoint that doesn’t mean you’re doing it for Boeing and Lockheed Martin and GM even if the agenda would probably benefits the owners of Boeing and Lockheed Martin and GM etc.

 

Citation(s) needed. Thanks.

 

Sure. This on on the Propaganda, which was passed a year before this one. But, this one shows the just of it.


http://rt.com/usa/propaganda-us-smith-amendment-903/

Here's how CNN lied bout Syria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3lWB5ssifTg

 

Is it reasonable to use Russia Today as a source, knowing that they are funded by the Kremlin? Is that not just Russian propaganda talking about US propaganda? How do we know which one to trust?

 

Russia funds US media too, to make him "look better;" He's like our government with regards to controlling public opinion. I watch all news, but probably shouldn't trust any. But oh well, my feeling is that someone has to be telling the truth.

It's just obviously not the 2 major parties, or it wouldn't have gotten this bad.

 

I'm interested to see what happens with The Intercept. It has been funded by the founder of ebay, with a focus on investigative journalism. They have hired Jeremy Scahill (wrote a book on Blackwater, as well as a book and movie called Dirty Wars) and Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who helped Edward Snowden release his documents. They have already published some very interesting articles.

 

Hmm!! I never heard of that!

You got me interested now. I didn't even her about that, and I just watched Snowden and Googles press conference on NSA spying. That was pretty interesting, I learned alot I didn't know. They certainly make it seem like the government is spying alot more than they/the mainstream media heads claim.

 

Well, to be fair, the mainstream media does not have access to what Snowden does. He hasn't released everything that he took.

 

According to Greenwald, Snowden passed everything he had to him and entrusted him to release what was pertinent. According to Greenwald Snowden didn't even have the documents any more when he left the US to seek asylum elsewhere, which, if true, makes those saying he had Russian 'help' and that other nations have that info look pretty silly.

 

I agree. However, I don't think the US has any important TV networks that are pushing a right wing agenda for political reasons. Murdock only cares about cash. When American business leaders have their private strategy meetings in Williamsburg, Virginia every year, I doubt if Murdock even bothers to show up. He has no reason to care what they have to say. Whatever that group does next year, he will make a shitload of money off reporting it in a way that is slanted to satisfy his primary US viewers. If he thought there was more money to be made from liberalism, he would instantly change the direction of Fox News.

I don't know much about UK tabloids, but I do know that there are plenty of talented writers in the world who will write whatever makes them the most money. We have no way of knowing what they honestly think about anything. If they seem to be writing in a way that indoctrinates, that only proves writing talent.

Genuine, honest political people don't understand how this works. To a true mercenary, selling one point of view or another is no different from selling white T-shirts or black T-shirts. You make money by selling what people want to buy. It's just that simple. When you care deeply about your political views, you can't relate to this kind of thinking.

 

Ahh, so not quite?

The US Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (Public Law 80-402), popularly referred to as the Smith–Mundt Act, specifies the terms in which the United States government can engage global audiences, also known as public diplomacy. The act was first introduced as the Bloom Bill in December 1945 in the 79th Congress and subsequently passed by the 80th Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman on January 27, 1948. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (section 1078 (a)) amended the US Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1987, allowing for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders for the Archivist of the United States.

NDAA 2013 (HR 4310, Section 1078 (c)) does not make legal the dissemination of propaganda within the US that the Smith-Mundt Act has outlawed: "No funds authorized to be appropriated to the Department of State or the Broadcasting Board of Governors shall be used to influence public opinion in the United States.

That looks more like the 'activist' was lying to CNN.

CNN 'lied about Syria' is a pretty vague thing to say.

Thanks for the response.
I just think you need to be less vague sometimes.
Maybe you are like the media that you don't trust.
They are not completely telling a person what they need to know to make a fair judgement of the issue raised.
I can now (you have posted the above)...

 

Karen

Rupert Murdoch owns 32 newspapers around the world, nine of which are distributed in the UK, I can’t find one that has a left wing bias all seem to have a right wing bias.

In the UK his papers have openly boosted (rightly or wrongly) that they have swung elections in favour of their preferred candidate (the sun wot won it) his papers only once openly supported ’New’ Labour when it became so far to the right that we here called it ‘Tory lite’ and it was only a very brief flirtation, and he got what he wanted access and influence at the very top level

In Australia on the first day of electioneering a Murdock paper declared of the Labor Party "Kick This Mob Out".

I could go on and on about the agenda set by the Murdock media.
I mean right wingers often go on about left wing bias in the media - is that ever levelled at the Murdock media?

I very much doubt it under Rupert.

I find that very cynical and sad viewpoint – I don’t think that people are so easily bought, I think that people have many differing views and in the UK we have outlets for most.

I don’t think the Sun would employ Polly Toynbee and the Guardian would take on Richard Littlejohn and even if they did I don’t think they’d change their political views.

*

One thing in the UK is the constant whispering campaign against the BBC by right wing groups and media (especially the Murdock papers) but it is not because the BBC is left wing it’s just that it’s not biased toward the right, because it has the horrible habit of trying to be objective and giving some type of balance. The right do not want objectivity or balance.

 

That's his business model. It works, viewed from a business perspective. As long as it works well, he won't change it.

Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert pretty much make a living doing that every day here. I don't know about the UK situation.

Being a very honest and open political person, you're not going to find it easy to understand the way some of these money-obsessed people think. They can be found almost anywhere; media, politics, business, education, etc. Everything they say and do is motivated by financial objectives, which makes it easy for them to look into a TV camera and say things that are obviously not true. They have a terrible influence on our political system. You can't have a real debate with them, because they don't care about the truth.

As a business person, I understand this mindset very well. I deal with those people every day.

In the US, the BBC seems to command more respect than any other foreign source.

 

The difference is that Fox (and the other Murdoch stations, papers, etc.) presents itself as news. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report are comedy.

 

But they do make some very valid and clear points.

 

Karen

But his politics fits in with what he pushes and promotes - is that just a coincidence to you?

I mean right wingers often go on about left wing bias in the media - is that ever levelled at the Murdock media?

Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert say that the Murdock media has a left wing bias? Sorry not sure what you are saying?

Yes but a ‘money-obsessed’ person isn’t likely to have a very left wing viewpoint, not that they don’t want to get paid. Do you think the right wing commentators are secret lefties or people with right wing views who just happen to be what right wing media people want to pay a lot of money?

You believe that someone with left wing ideas who believes those ideas would improve their society and think that right wing ideas are likely to make things worse - would actively promote the right wing ideas they dislike?

OK some people may need to grit their teeth and deal with the reality of a bad systems introduced by bad policy but that does not make them promoters of it.

Which sounds like they are right wing with a individualistic centric viewpoint

I think wealth which can pay for many right wing minded people to push their right wing views has a terrible influence.

Try reading this -

It's the BBC's rightwing bias that is the threat to democracy and journalism: The claim of 'liberal bias' is a clever fairytale that allows the right to police the corporation and set the wider political agenda

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/17/bbc-leftwing-bias-non-existent-myth

 

Which is what makes it funny and political satire has a long tradition of informing.

I think you should take anything anyone ever tells you with a grain of salt. Media bias is an extension of the way we relate to each other. We tend to project those images of ourselves that we think puts us in the best light with others and hide those we don't. We can hope for honest brokers in news journalism but mostly paid personalities are entertainers, news comes in print.

 

Comedy about serious subjects is one of the most demanding forms of communication. Every thought and every word has to be analyzed on two completely different levels. I have great respect for anybody who is able to do it well.

We'll never know what Murdock honestly thinks about anything, other than money. This is not unusual among business leaders. Their public persona is usually an act, contrived to maximize profit.

No, they accurately show his companies to have a right wing bias. Sorry if I didn't say that clearly.

I think it's a mixed bag. Many see politics as a necessary evil, not a subject of primary interest. Others may have personal views closer to the center, which doesn't pay in the current marketplace.

I believe we more often see this behavior from cynics who don't have strong political convictions, one way or another. Some strongly want to improve their own situation, even if the net effect on the world at large is overwhelmingly negative. They may see everything as a zero-sum game. We're talking about a large number of individuals, so anything is possible.

 

Why? Because it advances the neo lib agenda.
But I'm not suggesting a conspiracy theory, it's more a question of old fashioned class war.

Hurst was, IMO, a megalomaniac, who obviously had political ambitions of his own. He was a very strange person indeed.