"This is News Corporation's main face in the US, in the form of Fox News, whose hallmark has been relentless propagation of right-wing ideology. Whereas political propaganda had once been the domain of governments and political parties, Fox News is formally independent of both - though it overwhelmingly serves the interests of America's Republican Party.
In Britain, News Corporation has been creating a sort of state unto itself by corrupting the police, assuming police powers of surveillance, and intimidating politicians into looking the other way. In the US, it has behaved similarly, using corporate media power to breathe life into a stand-alone political organisation, the Tea Party.
All of this is far removed from what a journalistic organisation is supposed to do. Journalism's essential role in a democracy is to enable people to fulfill their roles as citizens by providing information about government, other powerful institutions, civil movements, international events, and so on. But News Corporation replaces such journalism with titillation and gossip, as it did when it took over the 168 year old News of the World and turned it into a tabloid in 1984, and with partisan campaigns, as it did when it created Fox News in 1996.
Not surprisingly, at Fox News, as at many other News Corporation outlets, editorial independence is sacrificed to iron-fisted centralised control. News and commentary are mingled in an uninterrupted stream of political campaigning. Ideology trumps factuality. And major Republican figures, including possible contenders for the party's presidential nomination, are hired as "commentators". Indeed, its specific genius has been to turn propaganda into a popular and financial success."
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/UFPYA
Netcraft rank: 6627 http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://rightardia.blogspot.com
Rightardia by Rightard Whitey of Rightardia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at rightardia@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment