A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

On Quora, James H. Jenkins asks: Shep Smith is gone from Fox News. Does this mean the network is only thinking about ratings generated from the opinion shows? Was he an ethical journalist? My answer: Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel was  never  intended to be a newsgathering organization, despite its name and the inclusion of broadcast journalists such as Sheppard Smith and Chris Wallace in its stable of talent. FNC has always been, first and foremost, a propaganda machine designed to help the Republican Party and the conservative movement by promoting right-wing viewpoints and attacking the opposition, whether it’s the Democratic Party and its members or liberals in general. Fox News  needs  a token handful of real journalists on the staff, mostly behind-the-scenes but also in front of the camera, to keep up the fiction that it is merely a conservative counterweight to the allegedly “dominated-by-evil-liberals” mainstream media and compete with  Th...

NBCUniversal's new logo. © 2017 NBCUniversal, a Comcast company On Quora, Rich Madhok asks Can NBC News buy the Fox News Channel? No. NBC News  cannot  buy the Fox News Channel. Here’s why: NBC News is not now, and never was, an independent entity capable of purchasing any of its competitors. It started out as the news division of the National Broadcasting Company back in the days of radio. (Fun fact: Until 1943, NBC had two networks: NBC Blue and NBC Red. In 1943, RCA spun-off NBC Blue and sold it to Edward J. Noble’s American Broadcasting Service. which renamed the Blue Network as the American Broadcasting Company.) The National Broadcasting Company itself is not an independent company; it’s now part of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. Comcast is not interested in acquiring another news channel; it already owns NBC News (over the air), MSNBC, and CNBC. It does not need Fox News Channel, nor does it desire to acquire Fox News Channel in order ...

© 1996, 2019 New Fox How will the Disney/Fox merger affect Fox News? The Walt Disney Company/21st Century Fox merger has not affected Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel or the over-the-air Fox Broadcasting Company. Before Murdoch and 21st Century Fox’s shareholders agreed to the deal, both of these assets were spun-off into a newly-created entity called “New Fox.” The Walt Disney Company already owns ABC, so it had no need to purchase the Fox TV network. Murdoch, on his part, is more interested in keeping Fox News Channel in his media empire, since being a mover and shaker in the conservative movement is far more important to him than being a provider of entertainment to the masses. (And considering how unpopular Fox News Channel is outside its conservative fanbase, I don’t think Disney's Alan Horn and Bob Iger wanted  that  hot potato anyway.) So, if you’re a regular watcher of Fox News Channel and were worried that its programming would morph into something that ...

Above: A typical rant from Laura Ingraham. Should Fox News suspend Laura Ingraham for her constant false, petty, partisan attacks on Democratic candidates who criticize Trump's racial rhetoric? No. First of all, Fox News Channel is not a true newsgathering organization free from bias. On the contrary; with the exception of some news breaks and coverage of “breaking news,” Fox News devotes much of its prime time programming to opinions-based content. (So do CNN and MSNBC, because opinionated presenters generate higher ratings than traditional news reports. This has been true since the early 2000s, and since ad revenue is the driving force of every free-to-air or cable/satellite channel, as long as Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity, and Anderson Cooper get eyeballs and $$$ on their 8–11 PM programming, it’s not going to change any time soon.) In the case of Fox, which is Rupert Murdoch’s version of a propaganda network for the post-1994 Republican Party, Laura Ingraham is do...

Is Tucker Carlson a White Supremacist? I’m convinced that Tucker Carlson  is  a white supremacist, or, at the very least, says horrible things that make him sound like one. I mean, seriously now; how can one not think that someone who says any of the following statements is  not  a white supremacist? “Immigrants make America poorer — and dirtier — and more divided.” “White men deserve the credit for creating civilization.” “The Iraqis are nothing but a bunch of semiliterate primitive monkeys.” “You know, I am not even sure that President Obama is really black.” “We need a Presidential candidate who will blame the lunatic Muslims who are behaving like animals.” So, yep. I do believe Mr. Carlson is a racist jerk who believes that the “white race” is superior.

Fox News seems not to dissect and interpret current developments in the Russia Probe like other channels do. Why? Are they intentionally limiting the information that their viewers receive? As I’ve said in my previous answers to questions about Fox “News” Channel, the reason for this is simple: Fox News Channel is  not  a dedicated newsgathering organization. It might have a news division with real journalists for “breaking news” or their off-peak hour news programming, but in reality, Fox News is a propaganda outlet for the post-Reagan Republican Party. For this reason, thoughtful, dispassionate, and honest dissection of such news stories as the Trump Organization’s connections to Russia and the conspiracy to basically use the Internet as a Psychological Operations (PsyOps) weapon to give Donald Trump an edge during the Presidential election in 2016 goes against Fox News Channel’s ethos. I mean, think about it. Fox News is a  propaganda  machine that would...

Fox News logo. © 2019 FNC and New Fox Why does Fox News constantly lie or state false information? Founded in 1996 by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch and led for much of its existence by the late Roger Ailes, Fox News Channel is  not  primarily a genuine journalistic organization. It has the name “Fox News Channel,” yes, but that’s partly to differentiate itself from its elder sibling, the Fox broadcast television network, which was also a brainchild of Mr. Murdoch and became America’s Fourth Network (after ABC, CBS, and NBC) in 1987. Mostly, though, “Fox News Channel” is essentially a propaganda outlet for the post-Reagan/Goldwater Republican Party. Its mission, per the concepts laid down by Messrs. Ailes and Murdoch, is to provide viewers with conservative opinion and some news content with a conservative slant (or, if you will, a bias). That’s why much of the cable channel’s programming in prime time (8–11 PM) features Sean Hannity, Laur...

Why does Fox News constantly lie or state false information? Founded in 1996 by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch and led for much of its existence by the late Roger Ailes, Fox News Channel is  not  primarily a genuine journalistic organization. It has the name “Fox News Channel,” yes, but that’s partly to differentiate itself from its elder sibling, the Fox broadcast television network, which was also a brainchild of Mr. Murdoch and became America’s Fourth Network (after ABC, CBS, and NBC) in 1987. Mostly, though, “Fox News Channel” is essentially a propaganda outlet for the post-Reagan/Goldwater Republican Party. Its mission, per the concepts laid down by Messrs. Ailes and Murdoch, is to provide viewers with conservative opinion and some news content with a conservative slant (or, if you will, a bias). That’s why much of the cable channel’s programming in prime time (8–11 PM) features Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and other well-known right-wing pundits and al...

As someone who studied journalism in high school and college, I often wonder how professional journalists feel about Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel, the cable news outlet he founded 21 years ago to - in part, anyway - combat what he and many conservatives saw as the liberal domination of print and broadcast media. In a 2004 interview with the Australian Associated Press , Murdoch said that Fox is  "full of Democrats and Republicans, the others only have Democrats. We don't take any position there at all. " Murdoch's public position on Fox News' bias - or lack thereof- is reflected in the network's slogan, Fair and Balanced. However, given Murdoch's acknowledged support for former President George W. Bush's foreign and domestic policies and his reliance on the late Roger Ailes (who resigned in disgrace last summer as Fox News' chairman after several women at the network accused him of sexual harassment), many observers accuse Fox N...