Has Uncle Rupert Become More Liberal??

[DemocracyInaction]

Saw Michael Wolff (who has a book on Murdoch and his empire) on Book TV last night (he was also on Olbermann) but this was a more indepth interview.

He says Murdoch is hen pecked (apparently all three of his wives were like this). The second was a super right-winger Catholic that thought Dems were Satan and so that's how he ran his media. This one is a liberal, likes Obama, and they now run with Hollywood liberals. Wolff says Murdoch likes Obama. Sooo..I wonder if as time goes by Fox News and some of his rag sheets are going to have to start easing up a bit? Then the Repukes will have no one to carry their screeds.

[Exilednight]

1. Rupert goes where the money is. Fox is a niche market and shall remain so. ..........

Olbermann told an interesting story on his C-Span interview. He was saying that he went out to dinner with an MSNBC friend and they ran across a friend from Fox news. The Fox friend said something to the effect: "I see you guys went liberal". The MSNBC friend said something to the effect: "We went where the money is".

[southerncrone]

5. Agree. He goes where the money is. He knows that he can't

be too critical of Obama now since the country is largely behind him at oresent.

If he thinks he can make a buck, you can bet you last one, that he'll do WHATEVER it takes.

My money is on his always being right-wing, since they hold most of the $ in this country.

[progressiveforever]

10. TRUE !

Where the interest is...there is Rupert.

[Cha]

2. Well, that's interesting and it

sure doesn't the hell hurt to at least have a "mediawhore giant" who doesn't hate the Prez.

[rufus dog]

3. I call bullshit

My take is Wolff is a whore working for Murdoch. Murcoch sees where the Country is right now and he is trying to soften his hard right perception. He hasn't changed shit.

Fire asshat Hannity then I will believe it, until then it is just marketing.

[lurky]

4. I don't think I buy it.

He didn't get where he is by letting people push him around and make his opinions for him, especially when it comes to his business.

My hypothesis is that he sees which way the wind is blowing, and wants to curry favor with the people in charge. Additionally, the audience he appeals to with his low-brow, extremist news is shrinking rapidly, and the dead-enders tend to be really elderly (unlikely to be around much longer), or poorly-educated and economically struggling (not a popular demographic with advertisers). It would make business sense that he would want to expand away from that.

The wife thing sounds like a face-saving explanation for why he would shift his "ideology".

[RepublicanElephant]

6. methinks rupert is more afraid of the new fcc than his "liberal wife." nt

[Orsino]

7. Power has shifted center-right from far-right...

...so that's where Murdoch will apply his suction.

This will be widely misinterpreted as Murdoch's having become more liberal.

[old mark]

8. He is merely following the mainstream - more p[eople now like

and support President Obama than not, by a large margin, so he follows that.Viewers = $. That's Rupert's entire "philosophy".

mark

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

9. Yep. Wolff has already appeared on the Thom Hartmann and Ron Reagan show in which

he described how Murdoch actually loathes Ann Coulter and especially Bill O'Reilly. In fact, most people in the media hate O'Reilly especially.

[Unsane]

11. I question how much influence Murdoch actually has over content

[AllentownJake]

12. Murdoch could care less about politics

Rupert's religion and politics is money. I've read he absolutely hates O'Reilley but O'Reilley makes Rupert money so O'Reilley stays. The minute that Hannity or O'reilley stop making old Rupe money he'd pull the plug on them.

Fox the TV Channel broadcast Family Guy and the Simpsons...both of which have an obvious liberal bent. Does Rupert pull the plug on those shows..hell no, they make him money.

You are talking about a network that before Foxnews broadcast Married with Children and In Living Color. Neither of these shows exactly appeal to the Foxnews crowd.

[PurityOfEssence]

13. A really SIMPLE explanation would be that Obama isn't all that progressive

Ayn Rand, idiot, user, vile entity and crappy writer though she was, DID have one really good point to make: that there really aren't such things as contradictions. When encountering a contradiction, she said, examine your premise.

The unshakable perception of many people is that our President is really a progressive lefty who's just waiting for the strategically decisive moment to stop lying to the reactionaries and turn on his heels and be a populist savior. Mercifully, many are now changing their tune, claiming that people who considered him a populist were just idiots who weren't listening carefully enough.

To be blunt: Obama is somewhat progressive on labor, science and (presumably) on the environment, but he's a solid, dependable corporatist. Medicine Incorporated has nothing to fear, nor does Religion Incorporated, and CERTAINLY not Money, Incorporated. The plans for the big media are still open to great speculation, but taken as a whole, Obama simply isn't that liberal.

Maybe Murdoch is perfectly clear about who and what Obama is and it fits just fine with his oligarchical plans.

It's certainly the easiest, least convoluted, most direct and simplest explanation. What's the problem?

Here's the problem: people develop their simplistic labels for individuals, and have to go through olympian mental and rhetorical gymnastics to force the world to fit with its preconceptions.

Think about this: at a time of obvious fraud in the banking and investment businesses, anyone with a NEUTRAL stance would be nationalizing all over the place. A liberal would have already done a lot of it. The only people who would fight a rearguard action against this would be staunch defenders of private enterprise against the very survival of society itself. Whether it's an ideological bent or an accommodation of political convenience or necessity, the end result is the same.

Why should Rupert Murdoch have any problem with this administration? On his important issues, they're more or less of the same mind.

Just to remind: this explanation doesn't require ANY re-evaluation of Murdoch's politics or personal control over his business. Outrageous silliness like depicting him as henpecked and at the mercy of his wives' politics isn't necessary with this. Obama has never made a big deal about increasing regulation or intervening or nationalizing; at every turn, he constantly sings the praises of private enterprise. There's no real need to skew the evidence on him, either.

What's the problem? Fits like a glove.

[Baikonour]

14. Rupert doesn't care what the Fox programming is...

as long as it's bringing in the dough. There's even rumors out there that Rupert HATES O'Reilly. Who knows.

The real scumbag responsible for the horseshit Fox News spews out is John Moody.

[Two Americas]

15. access

Access is what is important, not bias. Too few people have too much access, and too many voices are not heard. Replacing the "conservative" aristocracy with a "liberal" aristocracy changes nothing, since the political power imbalance is in the fact that an aristocracy controls everything, not in whether or not we have the "liberal" or "conservative" flavors of the aristocracy.

Why is it that half of the country sees the media as liberal and the other half sees it as conservative? Because it is neither and it is both, depending upon how you define those words and each "side" defines then differently, and neither defines them with more accuracy then the other does. The media is aristocratic and anti-democratic. "Liberal" and "conservative" opinions are just window dressing and are a distraction.