Travelling through the US of A, I have been amazed at the nature of how the media business has been turned upside down over the past 72 hours — and dear Rupert Murdoch is at the centre of it.
Watching CNN’s State of the Nation on Sunday morning, a White House spokeswoman (damn, only remember her first name — Anna) launched a vicious attack on Fox News as the “unapologetic media arm of the Republican Party”. She then gave a full 10 minutes to lambasting the viewers with examples of Fox’s “right-wing bias, unethical reporting, ridicule of everything that the Obama administration has done, etc”. She went on to say that the White House was “distancing itself” from the Fox News programs and, in effect, declared war of the network. CNN then hauled up a parade of journalists, TV pundits and, interestingly, a bunch of people who are reputedly big in the “blogosphere” (one woman, a Miss Nah, was captioned as a leading political blog writer and Playboy freelancer). Each one of this parade roundly condemned Fox and its right-wing bias. Some heavy stuff.
Flicking the remote to Fox gave another perspective. Holding court was none other that Senator John McCain (remember him?). The subjects — more troops to Afghanistan, better military strategies at home and abroad, Obama’s Nobel Prize (guess what he thought of it!), how there are 40 million Healthcare-uninsured people in the US and what was going to happen to them. McCain and another parade of sound bite experts carried on for two hours slamming the Obama administration on anything and everything. They slammed the digital world, calling the use of the term “blogosphere” juvenile.
Interestingly, one pundit remarked that this was a fight over the centre. Obama could appease his left-wing factions easily. Fox could drag the centre into the right’s camp.
Naturally, the two networks replayed and replayed the segments throughout the next two days, pausing only to refresh the commentary and restate their positions. As I write (it’s Wednesday) it has not stopped.
Compare this activity to a week ago when SkyNews UK waged a consistent campaign against Gordon Brown, challenging him to a presidential debate with David Cameron on Sky (naturally). Then, Rupert took the muzzle off the red top’s big barrel — The Sun blasted out that they were now withdrawing their support of Brown and the Labour Party and it was Viva Tories!
One can only reflect — is this Rupert’s last stand using the traditional media (his comfort zone) to blast out his political opposition or is it a desperate fight against the new way of doing politics: tweeting, Facebook, virals, blogs, and dealing with minor but influential groupings.
How this plays out is anyone’s guess.
It is fascinating watching what Murdoch has been doing the last 6 months. I’m going to take a punt and suggest that his media world is crashing down around his ears because of the new areas of communication and he wants governments in power to ban/control/disarm (the word is hard to find) them. Of course any government with an ounce of common sense knows that to try and control this is nearly impossible, even China has problems achieving this.
So the question I ask myself if Rupert, who thinks the existing ‘left leaning’ governments aren’t going to do what he wants, in what way are ‘right leaning’ governments going to do it? Also, dare I ask, what have they promised Murdoch? Probably not much but it is still curious watching this.
The polarisation in American politics is frightening. Fox is absolutely shameless in peddling (and creating) Republican Party talking points, no matter how deceitful. And I find it worrying that Murdoch, once a reasonably respectable media man, now so nakedly perverts the democratic process by having his minions peddle misinformation to further his corporate and geopolitical interests. You wonder whether it is possible for America to ever have a progressive presidency when so much of its population is so easily led by the forces of greed and fear.
I don’t think it’s as complicated as all that – it’s the schoolyard fight. All the kids want to see a punch up. They don’t really mind who is right or wrong, it’s the action they like. They will feel glad they are not the loser getting a blood nose. They will feel more glad the winner is not doing it to them while secretly suspecting if they don’t watch themselves in future it could be them.
Fox News is all about exploiting this very base reptilian aspect of the human brain – cowardice.
All Obama and progressives have to do, is stand fast. Like Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront. When people see he’s still standing after a ferocious battle they will over run the goons.
It’s Rupert has lost the plot when he gives a speech on copyright on information before the poohbahs of …. CHINA. Nuff sed.