So I’m watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this evening, and he does yet another take down of the evil idiots on Fox News, pointing out how the guy funding the two blocks from ground zero mosque is the same guy who offered $10 million to NYC to rebuild back in 2001 and is funding some ominous sounding Kingdom Fund. So he is supporting the funding of a “terror center”. Oh, and he is also the largest shareholder in News Corp (News Corp owns Fox News and other entities) and as far as we know he is all the money behind Rupert Murdoch.
What better way to destroy America than to set up a propaganda machine like News Corp and demagogue us with divisive hateful bullshit and distract us from the business of living in our wonderful country.
Be it resolved: News Corp being owned by the money man (remember, follow the money) is behind the terror center and is intent on destroying America.
Have you been drinking? I saw the same piece (it was actually on last week) and you seem to be a touch confused on the details, in additon to missing the point of the skit.
The ‘money man’ you refer to would be the Saudi ‘Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz’ and the ‘Kingdom Holdings Company’ appears to be nothing more sinister than a normal investment company. And to say he is the moeny behind Murdoch is just stupid, Murdoch is a multi-billionaire and controls (through voting with all his family shares) almost half of Newscorp stock compared to the Princes measly 7%.
In fact the whole point of Stewarts skit was to highlight the tenuous bullshit links you can create when you want to, a common Fox News tactic.
Besides, Murdoch is an evil enough bastard as it. No sort of sinister ties are necessary. He is the plutocrat who would have you working in a gulag while your sister whored for him if it would make him a few extra bucks.
No, I haven’t been drinking. But this guy supports Fox News, which seems determined to stir up the idiots in America with bullshit. And yes, Murdoch is a billionaire, but how do we know where he got that money? Yes, he inherited millions, but not billions. As far as we know, it is borrowed money. And why is this Murdoch immigrant from Australia always propagandizing America. Isn’t it a bit sinister?
Murdoch’s business deailings are well documented. He built his empire in Aus and the UK before moving into the US.
I just find it odd that you have latched onto this idea that Fox News is a conspiracy between Murdoch and the Saudis, especially when the original idea is clearly a joke.
Murdoch doesn’t care about destroying America, he pushes the same bigotted right-wing bullshit in the UK too via the Sun. He just has a larger and more lucrative market in the US and the lax media laws allow Fox News greater leeway in spreading mis-information. He’s just a completely immoral dick-wad who has found a brilliant way of manipulating idiots in order to generate huge quantities of cash.
The negative consequences are mearly a by-product of this hateful process.
Only one who is indulging in confirmation bias and can’t think outside their own country’s borders.
If you have a look at NewsCorp’s other outlets, outside of Fox News, and outside of the US, you’ll see a spread of political opinion.
In the UK it owns Sky News, The Sun, and The Times amongst other things, none of which seek to destroy the fabric of British society. While right-wing for the UK, these outlets are screaming pinkos compared to the US right.
Until recently, it had holdings in Chinese TV channels, which are rather pro-communist in their outlook.
And why would that be?
Because Murdoch et al are producing outlets that sell. Nothing more, nothing less. Often they do this by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Nothing but money money money.
Yeah, NewsCorp has undue and worrying influence in the world, in order to promulgate its revenue generators, but don’t try to con yourself that it’s a conspiracy to destroy the fabric of US society.
i agree with the title but not the reasoning behind it. Murdoch is quite sufficiently evil all on his own, and has made huge amounts of money by exploiting the worst traits of humanity. His media outlets seethe with hatred, lust (Page 3 girls, anyone?), avarice and stupidity, and he gets people worked up about non-issues in order to sell more papers and get more ratings. He has transformed the Two Minute Hate into a 24 Hour/7 Day a Week multi-media extravaganza and become incredibly wealthy doing so. The fact that he has picked up a few partners in crime along the way (the Saudis and the Bush White House, to name a few) is merely a case of mutual self-interest amongst crooks.
Yes, Rupert Murdoch and his empire have made the world a much, much worse place - but that was never his goal. Money and power were his goals. The carnage in his wake is purely collateral damage.
There was actually a new skit last night, where they showed the folks on Fox and Friends talking about some unsavory Saudi providing funding to the Mosque, I guess as a way of making the place sound more sinister. They didn’t actually mention his name though, but Jon pointed that the same person they were talking about was this Alwaleed guy who owns seven percent of Fox News. Jon then showed pictures of the guy shaking hands with Rupert Murdoch and George W. Bush.
Since you’re here I’ll ask you. I don’t know what your stance on Fox is in general but IMO this piece, them alluding to some evil Arab financier of the Kingdom foundation who is funding the community center, was the biggest and most obvious insult to Fox viewers I’ve seen to date.
They make some cryptic reference to this man without naming him and just naming the Kingdom foundation implying they are both part of radical Islam, when the very man they are speaking of owns a piece of Fox News. It took me three clicks max on Google to make the connection from Kingdom foundation, to Saudi 'Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz, to NewsCorp.
I have a lot of respect for reasonable thinking conservatives and sincerely believe conservatives and liberals are both needed to find a decent balance in society. I guess that makes me a moderate. I believe we need minimum but some regulation. We want to control business but not strangle it. We want to help people but not enable and subsidize irresponsible behaviour.
I have no problem with commentators who lean left or right but I firmly believe even commentators should have some committment to the truth. That’s been my biggest beef with Fox in general because their commentators seem to serve an agenda with very little regard for the truth and reason. Serve the agenda, hype any phoney controversy in any way possible and ignore the facts. I’ve seen it over and over again on Fox.
Ths latest piece seems like a huge insult to Fox viewers. IMO it says, “We think you are such idiots that you will swallow shit no matter how obvious it is”
I sincerely wonder why anyone would want to watch a channel that treats it’s viewers with such disdain. It’s one thing to sell shit as manure because everyone knows what manure is. It’s another to sell it as candy , tell people, here comes another batch , and they open wide.
ftr, I don’t think Fox is deliberately destroying America. I think they just don’t give a crap about the effects of thier bullshit at all. They don’t feel any sense of responsibility about their label as Fox news or their slogan of fair and balanced, it’s an all is fair in the makeing money game and if someone gets hurt it’s too fucking bad. It’s “There’s a sucker born every minute and I can get to millions of them” but Jeezuz H. Christopher Christ. Isn’t there some limit to how much shit the suckers will swallow?
Or, to calm down a bit and rephrase. Do you and other conservatives reading this, find it offensive and insulting for them to make that kind of reference , insinuating this evil figure is behind the Community Center in Manhatten, while the same man is a major stock holder?
Does it bother you at all that they will knowingly and deliberately spread lies about people and not give a crap about any damage they do as long as the controversy makes them money?
Just because this Saudi Prince owns part of NewsCorp does not mean that he is not evil. News Corp is a publicly traded company and if this Prince wants to own a small piece of it there is very little that could be done about it. It seems to show that commentators on Fox News have editorial independence if they are willing to badmouth someone who owns so much stock. If these commentators took the opposite stance many would criticize them for toeing the company line. It does not shock me that someone who gets their news from a comedy show is being unfair but the truth is their willingness to advocate against a stockholder shows a courage that is important in media.
Except, of course, that they don’t name him, only imply he’s an evil bastard and then* completely disregard that they themselves have definite ties with the guy* - he is the largest stockholder in Newscorp outside Murdoch’s family, not some little known nobody.
The “publicly traded” line is what the rightards are spinning all over the web, but it’s lame, and it still doesn’t explain why the Fox News cocksuckers failed to mention that he pays their salaries, or even mention his name.
In addition to that, this same Saudi Prince has been a guest on Fox News and his Kingdom Foundation lauded in glowing terms by the network.
actually watch the clip and then rethink this response.
The moment of zen for the same show was a Fox news clip of said evil man being interviewed and praised for he great work of the suddenly evil Kingdom foundation.
Just accept the glaringly obvious evidence that Fox in general, certain shows much more than others, don’t give a rats ass about honesty and intergrity or presenting accurate, even semi complete facts for thier viewers. Their purpose is to distort the truth for profit.