A rousing defense of Citizen Murdoch

Your friend is an idiot.

And, you know what, Joseph Goebbels could put out a slick line of propaganda in his sleep? What's not to like about him?

I don't know if your friend is an idiot or not.... I'd just like to know how he defines "best".

....and I'd also like to know why he doesn't think that Murdoch's news operations should be judged as a whole, rather than by three papers he thinks are okay....

Not to mention editorial control...he owns the business, but should he really influence the editorial teams as much as he does...
Hey folks does the Fox News Channel seem in touch with the viewer??

Yeah, some alternate reality where we're winning the war....

Are you freaking kidding me, Justin?

Again: if Murdoch is a creator, what does that make Goebbels? I mean, he did create the Nazi propaganda machine, right? You may not _agree_ with what he said, but a lot of Germans did.

I think I'm through with this blog.

If you want anyone to read this thing, don't pimp for the greatest propagandist of our era.

I'm just wondering if Murdoch is aiming to create some competition for you Time/Fortune/CNN Money guys.

" Murdoch is the sworn enemy of the centrist, self-important ethos of the American mainstream media--just like much of the blogosphere. "

personally, I think tha TomT's Goebbel's comparison is far more apt.

The idea that you can draw some RELEVANT equivalence between a multi-billionaire who leveages his wealth to spew propaganda to an entire nation, and bloggers who have gained influence within their limited based solely on their individual merits, is just SO WRONG I want to puke.

It acceptable to praise Murdoch for being a smart businessman -- but only in the sense that Hilter was a smart politician. Both sucessfully exploited hate, fear, and ignorance to build an empire.

And if you think that's admirable you've got serious problems.

(and btw, FoxNews audience may skew slightly older than the overall population, but what distinguishes Fox viewers from everyone else is their ignorance. Its not 'cranky old people' that FoxNews attracts, its white bigots.)

Ack! Paul's gonna puke!

Okay, I'll grant that likening Murdoch to a bloggy blogger is going too far. Not quite as "too far" as calling him Goebbels, but possibly more nausea-inducing. He's more along the lines of a Hearst or Pulitzer.

In the monopoly/oligopoly conditions that have characterized most of the media over the past half century in the U.S., the propagandist approach of some of Murdoch's properties can seem pretty horrible. But in a true marketplace of ideas such journalism is just one more voice--and just about everywhere he's gone Murdoch has increased alternatives and competition and made the media more of a marketplace. So much U.S. media industry strategy has been about squeezing out competitors and counting the resulting monopoly profits, and I just find it impossible to unilaterally condemn a guy who's bucked that trend for decades. Besides, I couldn't live without Fox Soccer Channel.

I guess you're right that Goebbels is a little too far: 50 million people died in the war Goebbels started in Europe, while only half a million or so have died in the one Murdoch started in Iraq.

Still, I think they have more in common than you're willing to admit here.

I suspect you're trying not to burn bridges in case you get a plum job offer from Newscorps someday.

"But in a true marketplace of ideas such journalism is just one more voice--and just about everywhere he's gone Murdoch has increased alternatives and competition and made the media more of a marketplace. "

Can you back that statement up....because I can find scant evidence that Murdoch has INCREASED alternatives in his media empire (excepting cable) to any signficant extent. In general, his strategy seems to have been to buy up existing properties (and dumb them down.)

And I think it would be incorrect to state that FoxNews actually increased alternatives. The primary effect of FoxNews has been to eliminate actual "news channels", and convert them into infotainment channels.

The audience for stupidity and mindlessness is much larger than the audience for intelligence. FoxNews became the dominant cable news channel not because it did a better job of covering the news, but because it pandered to stupid people. CNN and MSNBC reacted to the "competitive pressure" by dumbing down their own product.

Murdoch basically transferred Nixon's "Southern Strategy" to the media -- and just as the GOP's pandering to ignorance, resentment, and bigotry has resulted in significant political gains, the same strategy has proven highly profitable for Murdoch. The "competition" that Murdoch creates results in a lowest common denominator product, because "smart" content is much more expensive to produce, and has a smaller audience -- and has resulted in the devolution of the news industry to one in which content exists primarily as what appears between revenue producing advertising.

(Murdoch can't be held solely responsible for the disintegration of quality journalism, but that has been his primary 'contribution'.)