Jon Stewart nails Sean Hannity for dishonestly showing only part of an Obama clip and distorting its meaning. (At 5:30 in).
Actually, I think the other networks should sue Fox Cable News for dumping. There is an illegal practice of companies supporting a bad product by slashing its price below cost so as to flood the market and drive competitors out. Surely no self-respecting advertiser is actually paying for commercials on Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity. Billionaire (“the Dark Side”) media mogul Rupert Murdoch– owner of Fox Cable News– is just dumping these lying mountebanks on the public, paying out of his own pocket to carry them.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Are You Ready for Some Midterms? – MSNBC’s Political Narrative | ||||
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If Fox News didn’t exist, Americans would still have the same outlook. Instead of manipulating public opinion, Fox is following and representing the views of frightened whites, who see themselves as losing ground. Murdoch’s willing to broadcast certain shows that don’t attract enough advertising because such shows build the audiences for shows that attract plenty of advertising. It’s what a supermarket does in offering certain items at prices that are set below cost.
Since when do you buy news in a super market. Bad analogy.
Loss leaders have the same economic effect on tv as in supermarkets. People who watch Fox News are buying the news from Murdoch whether they think so or not. Those who think they’re getting tv news for nothing are selling themselves short. Even public broadcasting isn’t actually free. One is welcome to distinguish between loss leaders by industry, but Murdoch knows how to use loss leaders in order to make money. As the economy shrinks, as the ranks of frightened whites grow, as politicians who disbelieve peer-reviewed, evidence-based science win more elections, advertisers will spend more on Murdoch’s increasingly popular oddities, knowing that those who view such shows will then add to the numbers watching Fox News, which advertisers already support to the hilt. The next step is that other tv networks will add more oddities to their schedules in order to match Murdoch. Everybody wins but truth.
Stewart and his writers nail so many issues. So great that they opened up their off limits categories (I/P issue, I lobby anything criticizing Israel or their actions) the last few years. Noticed change.
Meanwhile, over in the UK, it looks like Murdoch may be taken down a peg by a scandal in which his tabloids had hired PI’s to hack into the phones of the Royal household, MPs & celebrities.
link to nytimes.com
link to guardian.co.uk