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.
1 comment:
Your arguement is very well developed and you are quite informed about the details and owners of the different organizations you mention. Your arguement raises many good points; some of which were also discussed in the textbook. I lean republican, but even I agree that there are definitly problems with the rules regarding donating to political campaigns.
We all know that Fox (and it's parent company, News Corp.) leans right and CNN leans left, but such an obvious and large donation does stand out. When I first thought about it, I thought it made sense, Fox is conservative, so whats the problem with them donating to a conservative cause? But as you continued to make your point I agreed that sure, you can donate, but don't make it blantantly obvious! The whole point of news companies, oringinally at least, was indeed to provide the public with reliable and objective news,facts, and stories. However, I think it was inevitable that as more and more sources of news appeared, some would decide to lean one way or the other in order to compete and be different. You argue that this deters regular citizens from trusting in their source of news, but I disagree. Whether biased or not, Fox will still provide the news, and the most important thing is that as viewers we understand that that particular source will have a slant. Unless they are a commited conservative and only watch Fox, an average citizen can be just as knowledgeable if they regularily turn to multiple different sources to verify a statistic or story, and find different perspectives on political ideas.
Your second major point deals with the concept of allowing large corporations to donate huge ammounts of money to a campaign organization. I had to read the section in the book twice before I even began to understand the rules concerning how much and when different groups and individuals could make contributions, it was so complicated! I agree that even candidates seem to contradict themselves, accepting the money and then, if elected, trying to write laws to lessen the influence of those same corporate donations! Candidates seem to be worried that by accepting contributions they then owe the group some benefit in return, which I think really is the unspoken, traditional assumption. All in all, I think to much money is spent on getting our officials elected, and the entire donation process could use reform, but it does work, so I'm not about to complain that terribly. There are so many problems with so many aspects of the governing process that its impossible to fix every one. The important thing is that we continue to learn all we can so that we can make informed decisions on the things we can change. Great post!
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