Fox News Saves the Day

Well, once again Fox News has managed to save the day.  I was listlessly going through news articles trying to find something to write about that seemed like a story demanding attention.  Feeling particularly apathetic about the lameness of the Tea Partyers and ‘broken’ Washington, I was finally struck by the audacity of Fox News and their affiliates.  Any attempt to even try at subtlety or objectivity has completely evaporated.  Fox News’ parent company, News Corp. owned by Keith Rupert Murdoch has donated  $1 million dollars to the Republican Governors Association, a huge donation by any standards, but in light of the source a staggering slap in the face of the American people.  Come on Rupert, at least try and be a little discreet and just by all these people off behind closed doors.  That way, we can all have at least an illusion that papers that you own  like the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and the Times of London are not completely devoid of all merit.  This is my problem with people today, there’s no subtlety or gamesmanship.  I guess Karl Rove proved that if you just came right out and said it, then nobody would stop you. This however has taken away any rational person’s ability to watch your news stations or read your papers and even pretend that this is not agenda setting at its worst.  Not that something like the Fox News Channel has been trying to hide it but this has gone a step further.   There are so many issues that are wrong in this situation that I’m actually a little flabbergasted.  
Journalistic Objectivity  According to Wikipedia the definition of journalistic objectivity is, “In the context of journalism, objectivity may be understood as synonymous with neutrality. Journalistic objectivity can refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities.”  I know that the media has always been plagued by yellow journalism, slanted writing and the problem of powerful and wealthy men controlling the flow of information, but can we say conflict of interest.  With such a blatant statement of News Corps support for one political party over another one has to wonder who will believe Jack Horner   a spokesman for News Corps statement, "It's patently false that a corporate donation would have any bearing on our news-gathering activities at Fox News or any other of our properties."   Yet, coverage of this very subject has been strangely absent on Fox News leading Nathan Daschle, the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association to question their ‘commitment’ to objective news coverage.  This donation harms the credibility and ethics of all news sources to say nothing of the journalist who work for News Corps.  This kind of maneuver will negatively impact their willingness to report on news that casts a negative light on the Republican Party.  This in turn will make for an even more biased and controlled media than we already have.  This whole situation screams reform, although I’m sure Congress will once again do nothing.

News Corps have long been criticized for their growing monopoly of the nation and the world’s media outlets.  In the USA deregulatory measures known as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 were taken concerning our Media.  While intended to foster greater competition, many critics argue that the act instead created more conciliation and less journalistic competition reducing the number of major media companies from around 50 in 1983 to 10 in 1996 and 6 in 2005.    Perhaps this contribution of $1 million was Murdock’s way of saying thank you.



Campaign contributions are another one of those subjects that politicians just love to talk about reforming but whenever it comes to a vote somehow it always gives them greater freedom instead of reining them in.  The fact that our system allows a corporation to donate $1 million dollars to a political party is shameful.  The fact that the Republicans would take that money from a news conglomerate and act like there is no conflict of interest is just a testament to how far we have sunk ethically.  Personally, letting a corporation make contributions seems like a huge mistake for us as a nation.  It gives power not to the people but to unprosecutable entities that we have no ability to reign in.  I know that the idea is not to have a politician taking money from an individual as that seems like a pretty clear cut case of bribery, but a corporation giving money to a party is really no less of a threat.  In fact, one could argue that they are managing to control a whole party through the means of one big contribution, rather than trying to buy politicians piecemeal.  In 1907 the Tillman Act banned contributions from corporations to national campaigns.  Since then, many have managed to chip away at this Act, arguing that under the First Amendment that it is unconstitutional to prohibit corporations from contributing as it infringes on their right to free speech.  However, you could argue that if we as a nation have endowed on corporations the ‘rights’ of an individual, than they would be prohibited from donating more than $2,000 in a political campaign as is any individual citizen.  This would eliminate these kinds of hideous payoff contributions from happening.  We need to make the case that corporations if they are going to have the ‘rights’ of an individual must also face the consequences and limitations of an individual, or else I’m going to start to lobby for corporate status so that I to can do whatever I want and never be prosecuted.

These are only a few of the issues this contribution brings up.  I'm sure if you thought about it you could find an infinite number of things wrong with it.  The fact is that this is a very real indication of the state of our political machine and the mind set of the American people.  We are floundering under a mountain of horrible situations and corrupt bureaucracy.  We're drowning in it.  So I want to thank Fox News and the Republican Party and most especially Mr. Murdock for once more stepping up to the plate and proving that they can take it just a little bit further.

    It has become increasingly hard to support the Obama administration and their promise of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ in the face of their ‘pragmatic’ approach to the issues they have faced.  The most glaring offenses in my opinion, have been in the handling of the prisoners of our country’s war on terror and the Obama administrations protection of Bush era officials and in many cases the continuation of their policies.  In this blog written by Andy Worthington for The Smirking Chimp on October 14 of this year, Mr. Worthington explores the issues of the violation of the prisoner’s rights and the Obama Administration’s rather frightening handling of them.  The Smirking Chimp is considered a left leaning blog and the audience that Mr. Worthington is writing for no doubt consists of those who feel as he does about torture and constitutional rights.  However, Mr. Worthington makes a very good argument about the legal and moral wrongness that has surrounded this issue.  Obama, instead of supporting the habeas corpus litigation initiated by the Supreme he initiated an interagency task force to review the cases at Guantanemo.  He writes of a particular prisoner Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, who was held on the basis of the flimsiest connection to Al-Qaeda.  Mr. Ahmed had in fact been in a Taliban prison for two years before he was taken into custody in 2002 by the Americans and held in Guantanemo until he was finally freed under President Obama, but only after the case was exposed in a US court.  His imprisonment was based on hearsay and association but Obama’s administration held him until this scandal was finally taken to court.  This kind of thing is just unacceptable and the fact that the Obama administration has not done a full house cleaning and removed all the people responsible for this kind of thing but has instead left them in positions of power is appalling.   Mr. Worthington references many other articles and blogs in his article, most of them actually referring to other blogs he himself has written.  This issue is obviously one he has spent a lot of time writing about and researching, and while he obviously feels very strongly about it, he has done his legwork and appears to know what he’s talking about.  He systematically goes through the policies of the Obama administration regarding this issue and finds that not much has changed from the Bush era.  Certainly Obama has protected those responsible for the war crimes that our country has committed and has changed very little regarding their approaches.  Mr. Worthington then goes so far as to say that Obama’s actions have gone even farther than that in his recently exposed use of drone assassins in Pakistan and his defense of plans to assassinate Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, suggesting that this protection has become important in his own plans for government.  Overall, I feel that Mr. Worthington has made a very compelling argument and agree with his trepidation in Obama's conduct concerning these issues.  We live in a country based on certain rights and these policies violate our rights and go against not only are legal system, but what I sincerely hope is our moral code as Americans.