Rupert Murdoch

Alarming That Billionaire Owners Of Media Are Staying Neutral On Presidential Endorsements!

An alarming development as the Presidential Election of 2024 nears, is that the billionaire owners of two highly significant and reputable national newspapers have refused to allow their staffs to make an endorsement for President. The Washington Post has had 76 Pulitzer Prizes in its history, and the Los Angeles Times has had more than 40 in its history.

Jeff Bezos of the Washington Post and Patrick Soon-Shiong of the Los Angeles Times have prevented endorsements in the most significant Presidential race since 1940 and 1860. This is billionaire cowardice, kowtowing to the authoritarian threat of Donald Trump!

Their actions, interfering with the editorial board and staff, is causing alarm and provoking resignations, as well as cancellation of subscriptions by readers, as it seems clear that the personal business interests of both men are getting in the way of principles and public safety at a crucial moment in the fight for protection of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law!

Additionally, the New York Post, owned by the Rupert Murdoch family, the most despicable newspaper owner imaginable, has decided to endorse Donald Trump, after having backed away from support two years ago after the legal cases against Donald Trump were made clear as a result of the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection.

Fox News And All Of Its Premier Commentators Caught In Open Lying And Manipulation Regarding The “Big Lie”!

Fox News Channel has been sued for its lies and deceit about Donald Trump and the 2020 election results, with evidence that its premier commentators–Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham—and others KNEW that Trump had lost the election, but continued to spread lies and mistruths. And the “Big Lie” still is believed by millions of Americans, who were and remain duped!

Dominion Voting Systems has sued Fox News for $1.6 billion, and now Fox faces this massive lawsuit, and Rupert Murdoch has been forced to testify, and the commentators have been shown to be totally repudiated.

But will it change the tenor of Fox News Channel, which has had no concern about reality, and makes money off gullible people who believe what they see and hear on the channel?

It is clear that you can “take a horse to water, but cannot make it drink”, a very sad set of circumstances, but if Fox loses the case, it will have a serious financial effect on the organization!

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post And Wall Street Journal Turn Against Trump, But What About Fox News Channel?

Australian Mogul Rupert Murdoch, the infamous figure who owns the NY Post, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News Channel, has had a change of heart regarding Donald Trump, at least in regards to the first two named media sources.

It has taken a year and a half since the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection for Murdoch and his publications to condemn Donald Trump for the criminal actions that took place, in denial of zero evidence of an election that was a clearcut win for Joe Biden.

But one wonders: what about Fox News Channel, and its major hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and others?

Will they continue to be in strong support of Donald Trump as time moves on?

It will be interesting if there is a backing away of support, but it would not be surprising if contradictions would occur, as Rupert Murdoch is a man of no decency or principle or conscience!

Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson “A Clear And Present Danger” To Truth And American Democracy!

Fox News Channel has been an outlier since its creation by Rupert Murdoch in 1996.

It has the biggest audience of any cable news channel, but it has spewed forth right wing extremist propaganda for the past 25 years, including their persistent promotion of lies, mistruths, racism, nativism, misogyny and Islamophobia!

Its talk show hosts in the evenings–Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and most significantly, Tucker Carlson–are demagogues who distort and divide for personal and company profit!

Tucker Carlson presents a “clear and present danger” to truth and American democracy, and his decision to create a documentary that denies the reality of what happened on January 6, 2021 is beyond the pale!

All of us who watched on television the Insurrection as it occurred, and all of the tens of thousands of hours of video that shows the destruction and assault on the US Capitol, are a permanent record of what was going on, and yet Tucker Carlson is claiming the events of that horrific day are a “false flag”.

This is propaganda worthy of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the authoritarian dictatorships spreading around the world in the attack on democracy that is now enveloping not just elsewhere but here!

Donald Trump is the most dangerous and demagogic political leader bar none—including such as Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace—in the past century!

The thought that any honorable media source would peddle such totalitarian propaganda is shocking, and Tucker Carlson is committing the ultimate felony of propaganda promoted by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany, the spreading of lies that led to the massive loss of life in the Holocaust!

Petty, Anti Intellectual Attack On Dr. Jill Biden, For Using DR Title, Is Unjustified!

We live in an anti intellectual society, where many ignorant, uneducated people, and those who do not acquire graduate degrees, resent those who have done the hard labor of attaining a doctorate in any field.

So we have an individual who wrote an opinion piece for Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, who stated that Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of President Elect Joe Biden, should not use the DR Title she is entitled to, having two masters degrees and an Education Doctorate.

This character says only medical doctors should use the DR title.

As an educator with a Ph. D. in History, who worked arduously to attain the doctorate, this author and blogger resents anyone who has issues with the title DR.

I do not insist that people call me DR outside of academia, and I do not insist that students call me that either, but I do introduce myself as DR FEINMAN in all classes on the first day, and have that title on my syllabi, and are introduced as such for a lecture or a media presentation on radio or cable.

Again, I do not harp on it, but am proud of what I have accomplished, and so should Dr. Jill Biden, a very distinguished future First Lady, who served as Second Lady for eight years, when her husband was Vice President.

And Dr Jill Biden intends to continue her teaching career, as I still do, at the college and university level, as I have done for 49 years now.

She will add stature to the education profession, which strongly needs it, and I commend her use of the title, as her basic right to do!

The News Media And Public Opinion Polls On Trial On Election Day: Are They Reliable?

Today, Election Day 2020, it is clear that the news media, particularly the establishment media–the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC–need to be demonstrated to be reliable and accurate in their coverage of the 2020 election campaign.

Or will they have “egg in their faces” again, as in 2016, when there was total shock at the result of the election, the victory of Donald Trump?

And the same goes even more with the multitude of public opinion polls, which misjudged what was about to happen, and also the prognosticators, many well known, and some like this author and blogger, NOT well known, who all believed Hillary Clinton would win the Presidency!

A one time blunder, or error, can be explained, as it was in 1948 when no one thought Harry Truman would defeat Thomas E. Dewey!

A second time, when all evidence is that Joe Biden will likely win a landslide victory over Donald Trump, would be fatal in many ways, making Americans unwilling to believe the major news media and public opinion polls in the future!

Hopefully, the right wing news media, notorious for lies and deception, most notably Fox News Channel, the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal, all Rupert Murdoch owned and operated, will be repudiated beyond any redemption! The same applies to right wing talk show radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, and a host of other extremists who exploit the American people on a regular basis!

Hopefully, we will know sometime tomorrow, Wednesday, November 4!

Rand Paul And Rupert Murdoch As His Guest At The Kentucky Derby: A “Marriage” Made In Heaven?

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is working at wooing Rupert Murdoch, and invited him as his guest at the Kentucky Derby horse race last weekend.

It made quite a splash in the newspapers and on cable tv, that the Australian tycoon in his 80s, one of the most powerful conservative giants, as the owner of Fox News Channel, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and The Weekly Standard, was allowing himself to be the guest of the son of the libertarian giant, former Congressman Ron Paul of Texas.

The question is whether this means that Rand Paul will eventually gain the backing of Murdoch and his top lieutenants in the conservative spectrum of politics, including Roger Ailes and Bill Kristol, among others.

At this point, it would seem highly unlikely, but it could be a “shotgun” marriage, although the odds of Paul being the GOP Presidential nominee, let alone the winner of the Presidency in 2016, is highly speculative!

Right Wing Enemies Of Progressivism

The battle for progressive ideas and goals is a never ending one, and the right wing enemies of progressivism are numerous.

Among them are the following:

Fox News Channel–Roger Ailes
Koch Industries–Charles and David Koch
Freedom Works–Dick Armey
Tony Perkins–Family Research Council
Pat Robertson–Christian Coalition
Edwin Feulner, Jr.–The Heritage Foundation
Tom Donohue–US Chamber of Commerce
Rupert Murdoch–Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and Fox News
Grover Norquist–Americans For Tax Reform
Phyllis Schlafly–The Eagle Forum
David Barton–so called, self appointed expert on American History

There are other groups and individuals as well as these, but the above are doing everything they can to fight progressivism, and take away the hard earned reforms of the New Deal, Great Society, the Warren Court, and Presidents of both political parties who have promoted political, social, and economic reform!

The Takeover Of Major News Media By The Koch Brothers A Menace To Journalism!

Charles and David Koch, the infamous Koch Brothers, who promote libertarianism to the extreme, wanting no government regulation of business, and sponsors of the Tea Party Movement, as their dad was the promoter of the John Birch Society in the 1960s, are now attempting to buy up a whole group of newspapers that are in financial trouble, and need buyers to survive.

These newspapers include:

The Los Angeles Times
The Chicago Tribune
The Baltimore Sun
The Orlando Sentinel
The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel
The Hartford Courant

These six papers and three smaller ones are all under Tribune ownership, which is in receivership, and it seems likely that these right wing extremists will come to control the fourth and ninth largest newspapers in the nation (Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune), as well as the others, and in so doing, will destroy American journalism as we know it!

Added on to the control of Fox News Channel and Rupert Murdoch over the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, it means we will see a growing extreme rightward tilt in news coverage, and the end of independent,, muckraking journalism over time!

This Koch Brothers takeover will deal a death blow to the distinguished field of news coverage, and all of us will be the losers, if that event, which seems likely, occurs!

The Coming Right Wing Takeover Of Most News Media: A Threat To America’s Future!

The right wing LOVES to claim that the news media are overly liberal, when that is a massive falsehood, and has been so for many years.

YES, the New York Times and Washington Post, and CBS, NBC, ABC and MSNBC are liberal, and there are others.

But talk radio has been dominated by the right wing for twenty years; Fox News Channel, owned by Rupert Murdoch and operated by Roger Ailes, has been spewing right wing propaganda for 17 years; the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post are also owned by Murdoch, and now the greatest threat to the promotion of truth over propaganda is emerging with the report that David and Charles Koch, the infamous Koch Brothers, who tried to fix the Presidential Election of 2012 with their engagement in spending hundreds of millions of their assets on Congressional races and the Presidency, allowable under the disgraceful Citizens United case of the Supreme Court, are now attempting to buy the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and the South Florida Sun Sentinel, along with other smaller papers owned by the bankrupt Tribune Corporation!

This will mean that the Koch Brothers will be able to extend their evil influence, already affecting our political and legal system,. our educational system, and having worked against health care and labor as part of their goal to control the American future in a deleterious way!

Of course, our system allows anyone to use their wealth to purchase and use their influence in any way they wish, but it is a sad day for American journalism, nevertheless!