How right this statement is for the present time; it's a bit disturbing
that you cannot trust those who report the news. Is it not interesting that
the agendas pushed on the American people can hardly be justified in person?
It seems to work only in presentation in the papers or on the television
screen. For example: It has been said from those behind the puppetry
reporting on the news: "You take the pictures, and I'll create the war."
I believe it is time to pull back the curtain on those who report the
news and do an exposé on who they are, what they believe and what they
promulgate. America is wising up to the fact that there are only a few
outlets worthy of their trust, and rightly so.
s Media Lies About Elecons
It seems obvious to an observer of the mainstream media that Mitt Romney
is the clear favorite of the Republican people, but take a closer look at
the facts and numbers and very different picture begins to develop.
As we consume and digest the 'honest' reporting of these venerable bastions
of the truth, our opinions are formed based upon this surety. What they
won't tell you is that they have chosen those who will not be allowed
any real exposure to the American people. These blacklisted boors are poison
to the goal of the "politiconomic" machine driving us forward to a better
tomorrow, for the wealthy.
Enter Ron Paul and his absurd message of smaller government, less spending
and liberty for the individual. I'm not here to promote Paul or his agenda,
but it should be noted that his platform flies in the face of all that the
mass media propagandists would suggest is undeniable fact, that we can keep
on how we have been with only minor adjustments to the system.
On the numbers side of things, there is a very sobering clandestine smear
campaign afoot that cannot go without notice. A quick glance at the politics
section of most news outlets will set forth the idea that the front runners
in the race to be the GOP nominee are Romney, Cain, Perry and perhaps
Gingrich. Taking a look at how the people feel is another matter altogether.
Since January of this year there have been debates among the candidates, and
at some of those debates there have been straw polls conducted. While not
scientific and certainly not decisive, they do allow us to at least get a
feel for which way the wind is blowing for each candidate in that particular
geographic area (though some polls have also been conducted via the
internet). What these polls tell us contrasted with what the media reports
is nothing short of shocking.
I can't understand why we started a War in Iraq in the first place. They
had no evidence that they had weapons of mass destruction. Why are we
going after Iraq, when we know North Keara is building them. North Keara
has missiles that can reach the California borders, isn't this something
to be worried about? They even lunched test missiles, but yet nothing is
done? What are we going to do, wait until they finally have the
technology to put a nuke war head on one of the missiles? Why?
Thirty years ago, it all seemed very clear.
"American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our
Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression", announced a
Washington Post headline on Aug. 5,
1964.
That same day, the front page of the
New York
Times reported: "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action
against gunboats and 'certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam'
after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of
Tonkin."
But there was no "second attack" by North Vietnam — no "renewed attacks
against American destroyers." By reporting official claims as absolute
truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam
War.
A pattern took hold: continuous government lies passed on by pliant mass
media...leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of
Vietnamese casualties.
The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an
"unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol" in the
Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 2 — and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up
with a "deliberate attack" on a pair of U.S. ships two days later.
The truth was very different.
Rather than being on a routine patrol Aug. 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox
was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers — in
sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese
navy and the Laotian air force.
"The day before, two attacks on North Vietnam...had taken place," writes
scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Those assaults were "part of a campaign of
increasing military pressure on the North that the United States had
been pursuing since early 1964."
On the night of Aug. 4, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by
North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin
Gulf — a report cited by President Johnson as he went on national TV
that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes
against North Vietnam.
But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to "retaliate" for a North Vietnamese
torpedo attack that never happened.
Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to
doubt that any Aug. 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from
the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J.
Herrick, referred to "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness"
and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat."
One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander
James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot's
vice presidential candidate. "I had the best seat in the house to watch
that event," recalled Stockdale a few years ago, "and our destroyers
were just shooting at phantom targets — there were no PT boats there....
There was nothing there but black water and American fire power."
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was
shooting at whales out there."
But Johnson's deceitful speech of Aug. 4, 1964, won accolades from
editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the
New York Times, "went to the American
people last night with the somber facts." The
Los Angeles Times urged Americans to "face the fact that the
Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters,
have themselves escalated the hostilities."
An exhaustive new book,
The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a
dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author
Tom Wells told us that American media "described the air strikes that
Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat' — when in reality
they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for
gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North."
Why such inaccurate news coverage? Wells points to the media's "almost
exclusive reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of
information" — as well as "reluctance to question official
pronouncements on 'national security issues.'"
Daniel Hallin's classic book
The "Uncensored War" observes that journalists had "a great deal of
information available which contradicted the official account [of Tonkin
Gulf events]; it simply wasn't used. The day before the first incident,
Hanoi had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and
South Vietnamese gunboats."
What's more, "It was generally known...that `covert' operations against
North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support
and direction, had been going on for some time."
In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
— the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North
Vietnam — sailed through Congress on Aug. 7. (Two courageous senators,
Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, provided the only
"no" votes.) The resolution authorized the president "to take all
necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the
United States and to prevent further aggression."
The rest is tragic history.
Nearly three decades later, during the Gulf War, columnist Sydney
Schanberg warned journalists not to forget "our unquestioning chorus of
agreeability when Lyndon Johnson bamboozled us with his fabrication of
the Gulf of Tonkin incident."
Schanberg blamed not only the press but also "the apparent amnesia of
the wider American public."
And he added: "We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever
desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the
truth."
[
Return to Media Beat
archive]
According to Erika Steinbach, Poland was the first to mobilise in 1939,
thereby provoking Germany to start W wii
I don't want war! All I want is peace...peace...peace...!
A little piece of Poland,
A little piece of France,
A little piece of Austria
And Hungary, perchance!
A little slice of Turkey
And all that that entails,
And then a bit of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales!"
-Mel Brooks, To Be Or Not To Be
I guess the news peg for this is the anniversary of the start of WWII
in September 1939, but Pat Buchanan has
gone ahead
and apologized for Hitler, claiming he sought no empire or wider war
with Europe, and had merely benign interests of German unification at
heart:
Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939, he was surrounded by
allied, friendly or neutral neighbors, save France. And he had
written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace meant war with
France, and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and
whom he had always sought as an ally.
As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia.
How then could he invade Russia?
Matt Yglesias does quick work of the historical inaccuracies -
Hitler invaded Russia as soon as he achieved a border with them by
conquering Poland. And
this is a decent riposte as well - Buchanan seems to expect a crazy
person to also be a rational military strategist, and when he's not,
searches for alternative explanation ("Hitler couldn't have wanted war
because he didn't have enough planes! So it's Britain's fault!").
But I'll take the less dainty approach. In 1939, in a small town
called Averduct on the German-Polish border, practically every member of
my family was rounded up by Nazi authorities, herded into a local
synagogue, and burned alive inside. This would fall in Buchanan's
revisionism as part of the supposedly honest and forthright effort by
Hitler to annex Danzig and restore the German homeland (hey, Hitler just
wanted some Lebensraum - why not let him annex whatever he decided was
part of Germany, right? Don't you want to save lives?). But my dead
ancestors didn't live in Danzig (now Gdansk). They had nothing to do
with such a conflict. Maybe that was the work of a few bad apple Nazis
acting alone. That and the other 6 million incidents.
But the bigger point here to be made is that Pat Buchanan is paid by
the allegedly liberal cable news network MSNBC, he has been on it for
years, if you add up all his appearances throughout the day he probably
spends as much time on the air as anyone outside of the Morning Joe
crowd, and that's... OK. Calling Hitler misunderstood is not a firing
offense at the liberal cable news network MSNBC.
Good to know.
My favorite comment in the Buchanan thread, by the way:
summarex
Great Article Pat.
But what’s your beef with general Pinochet?
Must be a follower of Milton Friedman.
WHO OWNS THE MEDIA?
Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That
Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read
Back in 1983, approximately
50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news
media in the United States. Today, ownership of the news media
has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly
powerful media corporations. These corporate behemoths control
most of what we watch, hear and read every single day. They own
television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers,
magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our
favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to
think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and
entertainment that they constantly ingest. Most Americans don't
really seem to care about who owns the media. But they should.
The truth is that each of us is deeply
influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded
into our heads by the mainstream media. The average American
watches
153 hours of television a month. In fact, most Americans
begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long
without watching or listening to something. Sadly, most
Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and
entertainment and the ownership of all that news and
entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and
fewer hands each year.
The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media
today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's
News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. Together, the
"big six" absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the
United States. But even those areas of the media that the "big
six" do not completely control are becoming increasingly
concentrated. For example, Clear Channel now owns over 1000
radio stations across the United States. Companies like Google,
Yahoo and Microsoft are increasingly dominating the Internet.
But it is the "big six" that are the biggest concerns. When
you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great
deal of control over what they think. They don't call it
"programming" for nothing.
Back in 1983 it was bad enough that about 50 corporations
dominated U.S. media. But since that time, power over the media
has rapidly become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer
people....
In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass
medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340
million deal. … [I]n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to
twenty-nine. … [I]n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty
three. … [I]n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved
the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media
merger ever. … [In 2000] AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged
corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest
deal of 1983].
--Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition,
(Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx—xxi
Today, six colossal media giants tower over all the rest.
Much of the information in the chart below comes from
mediaowners.com. The chart below reveals only a small
fraction of the media outlets that these six behemoths actually
own....
Time Warner
CEO - JEFFREY BEWKES
http://www.timewarner.com/our-company/management/senior-corporate-executives/jeffrey-l-bewkes/
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938[2])
is an
American
media mogul and
philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of
the
cable news network
CNN,
the first dedicated 24-hour
cable news channel. In addition, he founded
WTBS, which pioneered the
superstation concept in
cable television. As a philanthropist, he is known for his
$1 billion gift to support
UN causes, which created the
United Nations Foundation, a public charity to broaden
support for the UN. Turner serves as
Chairman of the United Nations Foundation
board of directors.[3]
Turner's media empire began with his father's
billboard business, which he took over at 24 after his
father's suicide.[4]
The business, Turner Outdoor Advertising, was worth $1 million
when Turner took it over in 1963. Purchase of an
Atlanta
UHF station in 1970 began the
Turner Broadcasting System.
Cable
News Network revolutionized news media, covering the
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the
Persian Gulf War in 1991. Turner turned the
Atlanta Braves baseball team into a nationally popular
franchise and launched the
Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine
Walt Disney
ROBERT IGER - CEO
http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/bios/robert_iger.html
Robert A. Iger became President and Chief Executive Officer
of The Walt Disney Company in October, 2005 after having served
as President and Chief Operating Officer since January, 2000.
As President and CEO, Mr. Iger is the steward of the world's
largest media company and some of the most respected and beloved
brands around the globe. His strategic vision for The Walt
Disney Company focuses on three fundamental aspects: generating
the best creative content possible; fostering innovation and
utilizing the latest technology; and expanding into new markets
around the world. Mr. Iger has built on Disney's rich history of
unforgettable storytelling, with the acquisition of Pixar (2006)
and Marvel (2009), two of the entertainment industry's greatest
storytellers. Always one to embrace new technology, Mr. Iger has
made Disney an industry leader at the forefront of offering its
creative content across new and multiple platforms.
Disney's exceptional entertainment experiences, widely
diverse content and unique skill in managing businesses in an
integrated manner led to strong results in 2010. During its most
recent fiscal year, Disney recorded 5% growth in revenues and a
24% increase in total shareholder return. During Mr. Iger's
tenure, Disney has become the largest media company in the
world, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 8%.
WALT DISNEY
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5,
1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American
film producer,
director,
screenwriter,
voice actor,
animator,
entrepreneur,
entertainer,
international icon,[2]
and
philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of
entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother
Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions,
which later became one of the best-known motion picture
producers in the world. The corporation is now known as
The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of
approximately
US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.[3]
Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular
showman, as well as an innovator in
animation and
theme park design. He and his staff created some of the
world's most well-known fictional characters including
Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original
voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary
Academy Awards and won twenty-two Academy Awards from a
total of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one
year,[4]
giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual
in history.[citation
needed] Disney also won seven
Emmy Awards and gave his name to the
Disneyland and
Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as
the international resorts
Tokyo Disney,
Disneyland Paris, and
Disneyland Hong Kong.
Walt Disney was a 33° Freemason and an illuminist. Behind all
those cartoons, magazines, movies etc., is a hidden agenda to
mess up our children's minds. Disney's production over the years
is filled with Masonic symbolism, occult over- and undertones,
mind control and indoctrination. He is preparing our younger
generations for the New World Order, and introduce them to
sorcery (black magic) as being a "cool thing" . Read more about
it in the above Springmeier article, it is amazing reading.
Children who have disappeared at Disneyland and never been found
again were kidnapped by the Disney Organization and sacrificed,
or used as mind controlled slaves, although their disappearances
have been blamed on crazy visitors who supposedly have used the
children for sexual perversions. On rare occasions this may have
been the case, but otherwise, the truth is closer to home -
Disney's home.
ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books
Viacom
Philippe Dauman resident and Chief Executive Officer
Mr Dauman has been our President and Xief Executive Officer since eptember 5, 2006 and joined our Board of Directors as of January 1,
2006, having previously served as a director of the former Viacom Inc. since 1987.
Prior to joining Viacom, he was Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DND Capital Partners, L.L.C., a private equity firm
specializing in media and telecommunications investments, from May 2000 until
September 2006. Prior to co-founding DND Capital Partners, Mr. Dauman
served in several positions at Viacom, including as a Deputy Chairman and Executive Vice
President of Viacom Inc. Mr. Dauman is a director of National Amusements, Inc.;
Lafarge S.A., a world leader in building materials; and the Kipp Foundation, a
national network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools in
underserved communities. He is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences, a member of the Business Roundtable and serves on the Executive Committee
of the NCTA, the Board of Trustees for The Paley Center for Media, the Board of Trustees of the
North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, the Executive Committee of the Lenox Hill
Hospital and the Board of Trustees and Dean’s Council of Columbia University Law School.
Thomas E. Dooley Chief Operating Officer Mr. Dooley has been our Chief Operating Officer since May 2010. He previously served as Chief Financial
Officer since January 1, 2007
Prior to joining Viacom, he was Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DND Capital Partners, L.L.C., a private equity firm specializing in media and telecommunications investments that he co-founded with Mr. Dauman, from May 2000 until September 2006. Prior to that, Mr. Dooley held various corporate and divisional positions at the former Viacom Inc., which he first joined in 1980, including Deputy Chairman, member of its Executive Committee, and Executive Vice President, Finance, Corporate Development and Communications..
Robert Bakish President and Chief Executive Officer, Viacom International Media
Networks
Robert M. Bakish assumed the role of President and CEO, Viacom International Media Networks in
January 2011. In this position, Mr. Bakish is responsible for all Viacom
Media Networks operations outside the United States, including those
of MTV Networks, BET Networks and the non-premium TV channels of
Paramount Pictures. In addition, Mr. Bakish is Chairman of the Board of
Viacom 18 (the company’s Indian JV which operates the Colors Television
Network as well as MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon).
Prior to that appointment, Mr. Bakish was President, MTV Networks
International, running MTVN’s operations outside
the U.S. He previously served as EVP, Operations and
Viacom Enterprises, and prior to that as
EVP and Chief Operating Officer, MTV Networks
Advertising Sales. Prior to joining MTV
Networks, Mr. Bakish was SVP, Planning, Development and
Technology at Viacom. Before joining Viacom in
February 1997, Mr. Bakish was a partner with Booz Allen &
Hamilton in its Media and Entertainment
practice
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1
News Corporation
Board of Directors
- Rupert Murdoch
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
News Corporation
- José María Aznar
Former President of Spain
President FAES - Foundation for Social Studies and
Analysis
- Natalie Bancroft
Director
News Corporation
- Peter L. Barnes
Chairman
Ansell Limited
- James W. Breyer
Partner
Accel Partners
- Chase Carey
Deputy Chairman
President and Chief Operating Officer
News Corporation
- David F. DeVoe
Chief Financial Officer
News Corporation
Viet Dinh
Professor of Law
Georgetown University
- Sir Roderick I. Eddington
Non-Executive Chairman for
Australia and New Zealand
J.P. Morgan
- Joel I. Klein
Executive Vice President
CEO, Education Division
News Corporation
- Andrew S.B. Knight
Non-Executive Chairman
J Rothschild Capital Management Limited
James R. Murdoch
Deputy Chief Operating Officer
News Corporation
Keith Rupert Murdoch,
AC,
KSG (born 11 March 1931) is an
Australian-American
business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of
News Corporation, the world's second-largest
media conglomerate.[5][6][7][8]
In 1953, Murdoch became managing director of
News Limited, inherited from his father.[3][9]
In the 1950s and '60s, he acquired various newspapers in Australia and
New Zealand, before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking
over the News of the World and then The Sun. He moved to
New York in 1974 to expand into the US market and became a
naturalised US citizen in 1985.[9]
In 1981, he bought
The
Times, his first British broadsheet. In 1986, keen to adopt
newer electronic publishing technologies, he consolidated his UK
printing operations in
Wapping,
causing bitter industrial disputes. His News Corporation acquired
Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989)[10]
and
The Wall Street Journal (2007). He formed BSkyB in 1990 and
during the 1990s expanded into Asian networks and South American
television. By 2000 Murdoch's News Corporation owned over 800 companies
in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion.
In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his companies,
including the
News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been
regularly
hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty and public
citizens. He faced police and government investigations into
bribery and corruption in the UK and
FBI investigations in the US.[11][12]
Political activities in Australia
Murdoch found a political ally in
John McEwen, leader of the Australian Country Party (now known as
the
National Party of Australia), who was governing in coalition with
the larger Menzies-Holt
Liberal Party. From the very first issue of The Australian
Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that divided the
long-serving coalition partners. (The Australian, 15 July 1964, first
edition, front page: "Strain in Cabinet, Liberal-CP row flares.") It was
an issue that threatened to split the coalition government and open the
way for the stronger Australian Labor Party to dominate Australian
politics. It was the beginning of a long campaign that served McEwen
well.[22]
After McEwen and
Menzies retired, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the
Australian Labor Party under the leadership of
Gough Whitlam and duly saw it elected[23]
on a social platform that included universal free health care, free
education for all Australians to tertiary level, recognition of the
People's Republic of China, and public ownership of Australia's oil, gas
and mineral resources. Rupert Murdoch's backing of Whitlam turned out to
be brief. Murdoch had already started his short-lived National Star[22]
newspaper in America, and was seeking to strengthen his political
contacts there.[24]
Asked about the
Australian federal election, 2007 at News Corporation's annual
general meeting in New York on 19 October 2007, its chairman Rupert
Murdoch said, "I am not commenting on anything to do with
Australian politics. I'm sorry. I always get into trouble when I do
that." Pressed as to whether he believed Prime Minister
John Howard should be re-elected, he said: "I have nothing further
to say. I'm sorry. Read our editorials in the
papers. It'll be the journalists who decide that – the editors."[25]
In 2009, in response to accusations by Australian Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd that News Limited was running vendettas against him and
his government, Murdoch opined that Rudd was "oversensitive"[26]
Murdoch described Howard's successor, Labor Party Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd, as "...more ambitious to lead the world [in tackling
climate change] than to lead Australia..." and criticised Rudd's
expansionary fiscal policies in the wake of the
financial crisis of 2008 as unnecessary.[27]
Although News Limited's interests are extensive, also including the
Daily Telegraph, the
Courier-Mail and the
Adelaide Advertiser, it was suggested by the commentator
Mungo MacCallum in
The Monthly that "the anti-Rudd push, if coordinated at all, was
almost certainly locally driven" as opposed to being directed by
Murdoch, who also took a different position from local editors on such
matters climate change and stimulus packages to combat the financial
crisis
Political activities in Britain
In Britain, in the 1980s, Murdoch formed a close alliance with
Margaret Thatcher, and The Sun
credited itself with helping
John Major to win an unexpected election victory in
the 1992 general election.[44]
In the general elections of
1997,
2001 and
2005, Murdoch's papers were either neutral or supported
Labour under
Tony Blair. This has led some critics to argue that Murdoch simply
supports the incumbent parties (or those who seem most likely to win an
upcoming election) in the hope of influencing government decisions that
may affect his businesses. The Labour Party, under Blair, had moved from
the Left to a more central position on many economic issues prior to
1997. Murdoch identifies himself as a
libertarian, saying "What does libertarian mean? As much individual
responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, as few
rules as possible. But I'm not saying it should be taken to the absolute
limit."[45]
In a speech delivered in New York, Rupert Murdoch said that the
British Prime Minister
Tony Blair described the
BBC coverage
of the
Hurricane Katrina disaster as being full of hatred of America.[46]
In 1998, Rupert Murdoch failed in his attempt to buy the football
club
Manchester United F.C.[47]
with an offer of £625 million. It was the largest amount ever offered
for a sports club. It was blocked by the
United Kingdom's Competition Commission, which stated that the
acquisition would have "hurt competition in the broadcast industry and
the quality of British football".
On 28 June 2006 the BBC reported that Murdoch and News Corporation
were flirting with the idea of backing
Conservative leader David Cameron at the next General Election.[48]
In a later interview in July 2006, when he was asked what he thought of
the Conservative leader, Murdoch replied "Not much".[49]
In a 2009 blog, it was suggested that in the aftermath of the
News of the World phone hacking scandal which is still ongoing in
2011 and might yet have Transatlantic implications[50]
Murdoch and News Corporation might have decided to back Cameron.[51]
Despite this, there had already been a convergence of interests between
the two men over the muting of Britain's communications regulator
Ofcom.[52]
In 2006, Britain's
Independent newspaper reported that Murdoch would offer Tony
Blair a senior role in his global media company News Corporation when
the prime minister stood down from office.[53]
He is accused by former Solidarity
MSP
Tommy Sheridan of having a personal vendetta against him and of
conspiring with
MI5 to produce a video of him confessing to having affairs –
allegations over which Sheridan had previously sued
News International and won.[54]
On being arrested for
perjury
following the case, Sheridan claimed that the charges were "orchestrated
and influenced by the powerful reach of the Murdoch empire".[55]
In August 2008 British Conservative leader and future Prime Minister
David Cameron accepted free flights to hold private talks and attend
private parties with Murdoch on his yacht, the Rosehearty.[56]
Cameron has declared in the Commons register of interests he accepted a
private plane provided by Murdoch's son-in-law, public relations guru
Matthew Freud; Cameron has not revealed his talks with Murdoch. The
gift of travel in Freud's
Gulfstream IV private jet was valued at around £30,000. Other guests
attending the "social events" included the then EU trade commissioner
Lord Mandelson, the Russian oligarch
Oleg Deripaska and co-chairman of
NBC Universal
Ben Silverman. The Conservatives have not disclosed what was
discussed
In July 2011 it emerged that Cameron met key executives of Murdoch's
News Corporation 26 times during the 14 months that Cameron had served
as Prime Minister.[58]
It was also reported that Murdoch had given Cameron a personal guarantee
that there would be no risk attached to hiring
Andy Coulson, the former editor of News of the World, as the
Conservative Party's communication director in 2007.[59]
This was in spite of Coulson having resigned as editor over phone
hacking by a reporter. Cameron chose to take Murdoch's advice, despite
warnings from
Nick Clegg,
Lord Ashdown and
The Guardian.[60]
Coulson resigned his post in 2011 and was later arrested and questioned
on allegations of further criminal activity at The News of the World,
specifically the
News International phone hacking scandal.
News International phone hacking scandal
In July 2011 Rupert Murdoch along with his son James gave testimony
before a
British parliamentary committee regarding phone hacking. In the U.K
his media empire remains under fire as investigators continue to probe
reports of other phone hacking.[61]
On 14 July, the
Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the
House of Commons served a
summons
on Murdoch, his son
James, and his former CEO
Rebekah Brooks to testify before a committee on 19 July.[62]
After an initial refusal, the Murdochs confirmed they would attend after
the committee issued them a summons to Parliament.[63]
The day before the committee, the website of the News Corporation
publication
The Sun was hacked, and a bogus story was posted on the front
page claiming that Murdoch had died.[64]
Murdoch described the day of the committee "the most humble day of my
life". He argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees
and that the News of the World was "just 1%" of this, he was not
ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid. He added that he
had not considered resigning,[65]
and that he and the other top executives had been completely unaware of
the hacking.[66][67]
On 15 July Rupert Murdoch attended a private meeting in London with
the family of
Milly Dowler, where he personally apologised for the hacking of
their murdered daughter's voicemail by a company he owns.[68][69]
On 16 and 17 July, News International published two full-page apologies
in many of Britain's national newspapers. The first apology took the
form of a letter, signed by Rupert Murdoch, in which he said sorry for
the "serious wrongdoing" that occurred. The second was titled "Putting
right what's gone wrong", and gave more detail about the steps News
International was taking to address the public's concerns.[69]
In the wake of the allegations Murdoch accepted the resignations of
Rebekah Brooks, head of Murdoch's British operations, and
Les
Hinton, head of The Wall Street Journal who was chairman of
Murdoch's British newspaper division when some of the abuses happened.
They both deny any knowledge of any wrong-doing under their command.[70]
Activities in the United States
Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when
he purchased the
San Antonio Express-News. Soon afterwards, he founded
Star, a
supermarket tabloid, and in 1976, he purchased the
New York Post.[9]
On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalised citizen to satisfy the
legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own American
television stations. This resulted in Murdoch losing his Australian
citizenship.[71][72]
Also in 1985, Murdoch purchased the
20th Century Fox movie studio.[9]In
1986, Murdoch purchased six television stations owned by
Metromedia. These stations would form the nucleus of the
Fox Broadcasting Company, founded on 9 October 1986, which would go
on to have great success with programmes such as
The Simpsons and
The X-Files.[9]
In 1987 in Australia, he bought
The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, the company that his father had
once managed. By 1990 News Corporation had built up debts of $7 billion
(much from Sky TV in the UK).[9]
forcing Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had
acquired in the mid-1980s. In 1993 took exclusive of the National
Football League (NFL) from
CBS and
increased programming to seven days a week.[73]
In 1995, Murdoch's
Fox Network became the object of scrutiny from the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC), when it was alleged that
News Ltd.'s Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal.
However, the FCC ruled in Murdoch's favour, stating that his ownership
of Fox was in the best interests of the public. That same year, Murdoch
announced a deal with
MCI Communications to develop a major news website and magazine,
The Weekly Standard. Also that year, News Corporation launched
the Foxtel
pay television network in Australia in partnership with
Telstra.
In 1996, Murdoch decided to enter the cable news market with the
Fox News Channel, a
24-hour
cable news station. Ratings studies released in 2009 showed that the
network was responsible for nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable
News" category at that time.[74]
Rupert Murdoch and
Ted
Turner (founder and former owner of CNN) are long-standing rivals.[75]
In late 2003, Murdoch acquired a 34 percent stake in
Hughes Electronics, the operator of the largest American satellite
TV system,
DirecTV,
from
General Motors for $6 billion (USD).[20]
His Fox movie studio would go on to have global hits with
Titanic and
Avatar.[76]
In 2004, Murdoch announced that he was moving News Corporation
headquarters from Adelaide, Australia to the United States. Choosing a
US domicile was designed to ensure that American fund managers could
purchase shares in the company, since many were deciding not to buy
shares in non-US companies. Some analysts believed that News
Corporation's Australian domicile was leading to the company being
undervalued compared with its peers.
On 20 July 2005, News Corporation bought
Intermix Media Inc., which held Myspace,
Imagine Games Network and other social networking-themed websites,
for $580 million USD, making Murdoch a major in online media concerns.[77]
In June 2011, it sold off Myspace for US$35 million.[78]
On 11 September 2005, News Corporation announced that it would buy
IGN
Entertainment for $650 million (USD).[79]
In May 2007, Murdoch made a $5 billion offer to purchase
Dow Jones. At the time, the
Bancroft family, who had owned the Dow Jones for 105 years and
controlled 64% of the shares at the time, firmly declined the offer,
opposing Murdoch's much-used strategy of slashing employee numbers and
gutting existing systems. Later, the Bancroft family confirmed a
willingness to consider a sale. Besides Murdoch, the
Associated Press reported that supermarket magnate
Ron Burkle and Internet entrepreneur
Brad Greenspan were among the other interested parties.[80]
In 2007, Murdoch had acquired Dow Jones,[81][82]
an acquisition which gave Murdoch such publications as The Wall
Street Journal,
Barron's Magazine, the
Far Eastern Economic Review (based in Hong Kong) and
SmartMoney.[83]
Political activities in the United States
McNight (2010) identifies four characteristics of his media
operations:
free market ideology; unified positions on matters of public policy;
global editorial meetings; and opposition to a perceived
liberal bias in other public media.[84]
On 8 May 2006, the
Financial Times reported that Murdoch would be hosting a
fund-raiser for Senator
Hillary Clinton's (D-New
York) Senate re-election campaign.[85]
In a 2008 interview with
Walt Mossberg, Murdoch was asked whether he had "anything to do with
the
New York Post's endorsement of
Barack Obama in the democratic primaries." Without hesitating,
Murdoch replied, "Yeah. He is a rock star. It's fantastic. I love what
he is saying about education. I don't think he will win Florida... but
he will win in
Ohio and the
election. I am anxious to meet him. I want to see if he will walk
the walk."[86][87]
Murdoch is a strong supporter of Israel and its domestic policies.[88]
In 2010 News Corporation gave $1 million to the
Republican Governors Association and $1 million to the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce.[89][90][91]
Murdoch also served on the board of directors of the
libertarian
Cato Institute.[92]
Activities in
Europe
Murdoch owns controlling interest in Sky Italia, a satellite
television provider in Italy.[93]
Murdoch's business interest in Italy have been a source of contention
since they began.[93]
In 2010 Murdoch won a media dispute with Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi. A judge ruled the Italian Prime Minister's media
arm
Mediaset prevented News Corporation's Italian unit, Sky Italia, from
buying advertisements on its television networks.[94]
Activities in Asia
In 1993, Murdoch acquired
Star TV, a Hong Kong company founded by
Richard Li[95]
for $1 billion (Souchou, 2000:28), and subsequently set up offices for
it throughout Asia. The deal enables News International to broadcast
from Hong Kong to India, China, Japan and over thirty other countries in
Asia, becoming one of the biggest satellite TV networks in the east.[9]However,
the deal did not work out as Murdoch had planned, because the Chinese
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch (born 13 December 1972) is the
younger son of media mogul
Rupert Murdoch and currently serves as chairman and chief executive
of
News Corporation, Europe, and Asia, overseeing assets such as
News International (British newspapers),
SKY Italia (satellite television in Italy),
Sky Deutschland, and
STAR TV (satellite television in Asia).
He sits on the News Corporation board of directors and is a member of
the office of the chairman. He is also non-executive chairman of
British Sky Broadcasting, in which News Corporation has a
controlling minority stake.
He was formerly an executive vice president of
News Corporation, the controlling shareholder of BSkyB, and served
on the
boards of directors of
News Datacom and of News Corporation.[1]
James Murdoch is a British citizen by birth and a naturalised U.S.
citizen. He would have lost Australian citizenship when his father
became a U.S. citizen, but he is eligible to reclaim Australian
citizenship.
MORE ON HIS CAREER FOLLOWING THE SHOCK RESIGNATION OF THE HEIR
APPARENT OLDER BROTHER:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Murdoch_(media_executive)
Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Fox Television Stations
The New York Post
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Beliefnet
Fox Business Network
Fox Kids Europe
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Net
Fox Television Network
FX
My Network TV
MySpace
News Limited News
Phoenix InfoNews Channel
Phoenix Movies Channel
Sky PerfecTV
Speed Channel
STAR TV India
STAR TV Taiwan
STAR World
Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
Times Literary Supplement Magazine
Times of London
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Television
BSkyB
DIRECTV
The Wall Street Journal
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Interactive Media
FOXTEL
HarperCollins Publishers
The National Geographic Channel
National Rugby League
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Radio Veronica
ReganBooks
Sky Italia
Sky Radio Denmark
Sky Radio Germany
Sky Radio Netherlands
STAR
Zondervan
CBS Corporation
Leslie Moonves
President and Chief Executive
Officer, CBS Corporation
Leslie Moonves is President and
Chief Executive Officer of CBS Corporation, as well as a member of
the Company's board of directors. In this role, he oversees all
operations of the company, including the CBS Television Network, The
CW (a joint venture between CBS Corporation and Warner Bros.
Entertainment), CBS Television Stations, CBS Television Studios, CBS
Studios International, CBS Television Distribution, Showtime, CBS
Radio, CBS Outdoor, Simon & Schuster, CBS Interactive, CBS Consumer
Products, CBS Home Entertainment and CBS Films.
Prior to the Viacom separation in
2005, Moonves served as Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer
of Viacom and Chairman of CBS, overseeing all of Viacom's domestic
and international broadcast television operations, radio division
and outdoor advertising operations.
Moonves was promoted to Chairman
and CEO of CBS in 2003, and prior to that, was President and Chief
Executive Officer, CBS Television, a position he was elevated to in
April 1998. He joined CBS in July 1995 as President, CBS
Entertainment.
Under Moonves' guidance, CBS has
maintained its dominance as America’s #1 TV network, while the
Showtime pay cable network has significantly increased its
viewership, subscription fees and critical acclaim under his watch.
The 2008 acquisition of CNET has made CBS one of the country’s top
10 Internet companies. Moonves has also been at the
forefront of realizing subscription fees for broadcast networks
through retransmission consent agreements, and has developed new
ways to distribute and monetize content on new and emerging
platforms worldwide. His move to consolidate the company’s local TV
and radio stations has helped the company become a leader in local
media, and he has spearheaded Simon & Schuster’s move into the
eBooks marketplace.
He joined CBS from Warner Bros. Television, where as President, he
oversaw a television division that supplied the greatest number of
programs to network television for nine consecutive years,
culminating in a record-setting 22 series (including "ER," "Friends"
and "The Drew Carey Show") on the 1995-96 network schedules. He had
been President of Warner Bros. Television since July 1993, when
Warner Bros. and Lorimar Television combined operations. From 1989
to 1993, he had been President of Lorimar Television. He joined the
company in 1985 as executive in charge of its movies and
mini-series, and became head of creative affairs in 1988.
Earlier in his career, Moonves
was Vice President of movies and mini-series for Twentieth Century
Fox Television, where he was also in charge of first-run syndication
and pay/cable programming. He had previously been Vice President,
development, for Saul Ilson Productions (in association with
Columbia Pictures Television) and a development executive for
Catalina Productions. Upon graduation from Bucknell University,
Moonves pursued an acting career at New York's Neighborhood
Playhouse, studying under the renowned Sanford Meisner. He performed
in numerous stage and television productions before opting to
produce plays on Broadway and in Los Angeles.
Moonves is on the board of
trustees of the Entertainment Industries Council. He is a trustee of
the National Council for Families and Television and of the American
Film Institute and is past president of the Hollywood Radio and
Television Society. He is also a co-chair on The Paley Center for
Media's Los Angeles Board of Governors. In March 2003, Moonves was
honored by the International Radio and Television Society as the
recipient of the Gold Medal Award, one of most prestigious honors in
media and entertainment. Since joining CBS, Moonves has also been
named Variety's Showman of the Year and Entertainment Weekly's Most
Powerful Man in Hollywood and received the Casting Society of
America's Career Achievement Award. He is also a past recipient of
the American Jewish Committee's Sherrill Corwin Award, given
CBS News
CBS Sports
CBS Television Network
CNET
Showtime
TV.com
CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
CBS Consumer Products
CBS Outdoor
CW Network (50% ownership)
Infinity Broadcasting
Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)
Westwood One Radio Network
NBC Universal
Bravo
CNBC
NBC News
MSNBC
NBC Sports
NBC Television Network
Oxygen
SciFi Magazine
Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
Telemundo
USA Network
Weather Channel
Focus Features
NBC Universal Television Distribution
NBC Universal Television Studio
Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
Trio
Universal Parks & Resorts
Universal Pictures
Universal Studio Home Video
These gigantic media corporations do not exist to objectively
tell the truth to the American people. Rather, the primary
purpose of their existence is to make money.
These gigantic media corporations are not going to do
anything to threaten their relationships with their biggest
advertisers (such as the largest pharmaceutical companies that
literally spend billions on advertising), and one way or another
these gigantic media corporations are always going to express
the ideological viewpoints of their owners.
Fortunately, an increasing number of Americans are starting
to wake up and are realizing that the mainstream media should
not be trusted.
According to a new poll just released by Gallup, the number
of Americans that have little to no trust in the mainstream
media (57%) is at an all-time high.
That is one reason why we have seen the alternative media
experience such rapid growth over the past few years. The
mainstream media has been losing credibility at a staggering
rate, and Americans are starting to look elsewhere for the truth
about what is really going on.
Do you think that anyone in the mainstream news would
actually tell you that
the Federal Reserve is bad for America or that we are facing
a horrific
derivatives bubble that could destroy the entire world
financial system? Do you think that anyone in the mainstream
media would actually tell you the truth about the
deindustrialization of America or the truth about
the voracious greed of Goldman Sachs?
Sure there are a few courageous reporters in the mainstream
media that manage to slip a few stories past their corporate
bosses from time to time, but in general there is a very clear
understanding that there are simply certain things that you just
do not say in the mainstream news.
But Americans are becoming increasingly hungry for the truth,
and they are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the dumbed
down pablum that is passing as "hard hitting news" these days.
FROM
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/who-owns-the-media-the-6-monolithic-corporations-that-control-almost-everything-we-watch-hear-and-read
COMMENTS:
This message absolutely will not go through so am trying
again! Definitely censorship going on.
-----------------
Hi Dee,
What you said there about the TV as being the false prophet
is absolutely true. In the last few days, both US & Soviet
nuclear warships showed up in the waters off Syria...not a
word said on the news. We hear flippant crap, movie stars,
people dead for years (Michael Jackson etc.) perverts, old
news, anything but the real stuff that is happening out
there. The US is truly in a news blackout situation right
now. They think that the majority of us are mindless
idiots...maybe they are but not me.
I had Thanksgiving dinner with my niece and her husband,
both who work for N^A*S^^A. We were talking about asteroids
and the subject of Comet El*enin came up. He said bluntly
(with slight disgust in his mouth) "El*enin was no comet!"
Then he turned red and looked away and said no more. He is
rather high up, having been the assistant director of the
shuttle program and is now working on O#ri^on. We were
talking about water on Mars and he said, "I wouldn't
know"when I queried him, and he did that look off into space
thing like when he made the other comment. I know he knows
more and is forbidden to say anything. He told us they are
dismantling everything that had to do with the shuttle
program and sending all the equipment off to universities
etc. Wonder if they think Clear Lake might go under the
water soon?
Betty
>
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