Can the Foxes Save the Hen House?
Fox’s New Business News Channel Seeks to Rescue Corporate America
The FOX has come back to guard the hen house. But if history is any guide, the hens and the chickens will not be too welcoming.
The arrival of the Fox Business News channel is to its backers comparable to the cavalry coming over the hill to save the business world, if not the capitalist system, from detractors if not from itself. Whereas Jesus sought to drive the moneychangers from the Temple, Fox’s Roger Ailes has his sights on those subversive “liberals” who have wormed their way into posing a friends of business world on CNBC. He has vowed to blow them away.
CNBC’s owner, General Electric, a company known for its corporate conservatism and its past patronage of Ronald Reagan, has to be amused to find itself on Rupert Murdoch’s enemies list. Speaking of CNBC, Murdoch sounded like the Grinch of Christmas past in hinting but never really spelling out his agenda:
A British outlet quotes him. “They dwell too much on failures or scandals,” Murdoch said last week. “We don’t get up every morning thinking business is bad,” said Ailes. “Many times I’ve seen things on CNBC where they are not as friendly to corporations and profits as they should be.”
Roger Ailes is a rightwing Republican street fighter has been repositioned for this task. He is downplaying his hardcore GOP Bushevik ideology to recast himself as a self-styled populist, the champion of the little people, fueled with a war chest of $300 million from the evil empire run by the shadowy and Orwellian named News Corporation.
Ironically, on the same day that Fox took to air, one of the institutions Murdoch seems to admire, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), opened its Congress in Beijing with its own plan for politically correct capitalism. They too are purging their liberals. What symmetry! (Hu may be on first but Rupert is pitching.)
Back in New York, on Wall Street, the credit crisis just won’t go away with a new wave of major defaults on loans, banks reporting billions in write downs and losses and fresh warnings from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank that the economic slowdown is here. An economist at Goldman Sachs dismissed a new plan by three big banks and the Treasury Department to “calm debts in housing” as a “P.R. move.” PR for business is at the heart of the Fox Biz mission.
On top of that, some of the people who Ailes hopes to champion and convert into viewers are out protesting against predatory lenders and boycotting Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest lender and mortgage servicer. In some parts of the country, the partisan war is giving way to a new type of debt-driven class war of borrowers fighting lenders.
In other words, the business arena is a lot messier and more complex than the political arena which Fox News was able to polarize with simplistic pro-war slogans, personality baiting and and us versus them patriotically-correct deception. A mechanistic pro-business versus anti-business frame is not the same and is not going to work.
That’s why Roger has paid more attention to sizzle than steak with a new stable of foxy presenters aimed more at the eye than the head. Snazzy graphics, hot colors, and special music is complemented by “conversational” anchors round out the carefully thought out packaging. At least one show will come from a bar. After all, he is competing against sexy “money honeys” like CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo.
TV can’t be all slogans and flag waving-a reality than many Fox critics miss by just focusing on what is said and not on the attitudes and look that drive Fox’s audience-friendly media environment
One of his big problems is a changing mood in a country that does not share the upbeat pro-business optimism that pours like a nightly sermon out of the mouths of Neil Cavuto and clones. (Ultimately, Fox Business may be more of a religious channel than a news outlet with its faith-based approach.)
They are competing with more on TV and in the popular culture than CNBC or Bloomberg. CSI Miami recently worked the practices of abusive credit card companies into a primetime drama. A correspondent who saw it told me, “while highly dramatized to be sure, the message was pretty clear–beware the credit card industry/offers young people!” Capital One ads were oddly absent during the show. The episode was entitled “Bang, Bang, Your Debt” and is available for viewing in full on Innertube.” Check out the new George Clooney flick Michael Clayton for a tale of more corporate perfidy.
This is all taking place in a climate of growing pessimism about our economy and business —attitudes that run contrary to the gung-ho optimism that Fox projects and which infects self-defined conservatives and liberals alike.
Gary Younge of the Guardian has reported on a deeper shift in American attitudes that perhaps he can see more clearly as a foreigner:
“This sense of optimism has been in retreat in almost every sense over the past few years. According to Rasmussen polls, just 21% of Americans believe the country is on the right track, a figure that has fallen by more than a half since the presidential election of 2004. Meanwhile only a third think the country’s best days are yet to come, as opposed to 43% who believe they have come and gone - again a steep decline on three years ago. These are not one-offs. In the past 18 months almost every poll that has asked Americans about their country’s direction has produced among the most pessimistic responses on record - a more extended period than anyone can remember since Watergate.
America, in short, is in a deep funk. Far from feeling hopeful, it appears fearful of the outside world and despondent about its own future. Not only do most believe tomorrow will be worse than today, they also feel that there is little that can be done about it.”
And one main reason is that Americans are hurting in their pocketbooks as well as their souls:
“Closest to home is the economy. Wages are stagnant, house prices in most areas have stalled or are falling, the dollar is plunging, and the deficit is rising. A Pew survey last week showed that 72% believe the economy is either ‘only fair’ or poor and 76% believe it will be the same or worse a year from now. Globalization is a major worry…”
Corporate-friendly Fox Business is not speaking to this sense of despair as real populists would, and perhaps like Ron Paul and some of the Democratic challengers, are. And by the way, the rich high CPM (Cost per thousand) viewers at CNBC are also on the defensive, nervous, worried, scared, and maybe even panicked.
This is a time for economic truth, justice and change, a focus on remedying the crimes of institutions, not the flaws of personalities. Who needs more inane business chatter on the ups and downs or markets, or even the posturing ploys of populist posers who pretend at anti-elitism with the money bags of moguls behind them?
News Dissector Danny Schechter, who blogs on Mediachannel.org, directed the film In Debt We Trust about the credit crunch. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
If FOX were only friendly to business/corporations, it wouldn’t be so alarming. Boring, maybe, but not alarming.
What’s really shocking is the tie FOX has to the Bush administration determined to destroy America’s Constitutional government, and one can only conclude there’s a natural fit there.
Even idiots recognize that a marriage of corporate-political factors is now a reality. And it’s a world-wide phenomenon, not occurring in just America, though it’s certainly a vital concern to America for its survival. When all the media and communications pathways are sucked up into a vast vortex-maelstrom of unity, most of us will be unable to function freely and in community with each other.
I simply don’t see any way to stop the juggernaut…
Just what we need - more “good” PR for the ruthlessly greedy.
Good PR meaning: Ken Lay, Forbes Mag CEO of the Century? “Housing bubble? What housing bubble?” ATT is so devoted to American ideals they actually built the NSA it’s only little illegal spy HQ… to protect the children? (And anyone who even mentions it is damaging national security, don’t forget.) Wal Mart planted a tree somewhere? Phillip Morris is dedicated to helping customers in their efforts not to buy their products?
Yup - get never get enough of that tasty good corporate PR.
The proper antidote to spin from Fox News and Fox Business Channel is a government controlled by Democrats and appointing the likes of New York’s Elliot Spitzer from pillar to post—at the SEC, at the Fed, at Treasury, at The Supreme Court, at Commerce, at Justice, at Labor, at the NLRB, at FDA, at CPSC, at the CPB, at OSHA, you name it.
Failing that, there probably is no antidote to Rupert Murdoch and the deleterious effects that his very large spin machine can create.
“Ironically, on the same day that Fox took to air, one of the institutions Murdoch seems to admire, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), opened its Congress in Beijing with its own plan for politically correct capitalism. They too are purging their liberals. What symmetry! (Hu may be on first but Rupert is pitching.)”
Whether its the conservative right or the conservative left, birds of a feather flock together.
To the metaphysical extent that Life IS a shared creation, every human being a strand in a vast tapestry, what the US has consciously done to other nations does reverberate, if not on planes of actual consciousness, then on more subtle ones. There is a saying in spirituality, “The ill-begotten wealth will have to be given back.” Like other principles of Divine Justice, this adage supports the irrevocable law of karma. We are not a patient society, and most of us have been conditioned to think in terms of instant gratification. The Buddhists evidence far more grace because they recognize that justice is inviolate, although it takes a lot longer than seeing the scales balance on our time line.
America has stolen by false trade deals, mafia-style strong-arming and/or armed conflict those resources that belong to other nations and peoples, and now the prevailing angst that hangs over our land is the first sign of a cognitive realization that HARM is being done in our names. No. We cannot continue on the basis of aggression or the false sense that our people deserve a better world than every other nation’s populace.
Over the course of the next 7–10 years enormous battles pitting those commited to genuine justice against those who benefit from the status quo will be in evidence. The global corporations have become the new pharaohs and the rest of us slaves. Once again the call for liberation based on a new understanding of humanity and its purpose will get underway.
ST JOHN wrote eloquently on this same topic on another CD thread today.
Those stop-gap measures by Bernanke do not seem to have treated the disease but rather vapo-rub for the symptoms; which proved Cramer to be the squeekiest wheel that got Wall Street greased (as usual). That’s the result of a world full of technicians but very few master-craftsmen.
The tower of mammon is leaning into the wind,….it IS going over! Why does that give me solace?? Because I value truth above all else, and that is the solace that’s being represented. A tower built on manipulation, obfuscation, greed, cronyism, should not defy the laws of physics, nor the psyche. In that I take solace.
Arrogance + obfuscation = ineptitude but……..
Arrogance + ineptitude = self destruction.
In that I OWN solace.
Siouxrose, glad you’re back.
Siouxrose, When I first read your posts I thought “Wow - this gal sees things through a totally different lens to mine”. But gradually I have come to appreciate your point of view.
REBEL NOW & BRAITHWA: I contribute to this forum as time permits (I am proof-reading galleys for 3 books at the present time, doing the final edit for a 4th, and have a 5th in line) because it invites a variety of perspectives. Some contributors have a massive understanding of history, details that never came my way in any HS history books. Others seem to have a profound understanding of economics, while others are expert on candidates’ past and present positions.
In the past I hosted TV & radio shows and as the media got bought out by conservative owners, I watched my vision/voice become marginalized. The “wise men” who understood the time had come for the birth of Jesus were astrologers. The Medici family and others in high position consulted with astrologers like Nostradamus. Nancy Reagan had a private astrologer, and many CD readers may not know that between 1860 and 2000 every president elected on the 20 year interval died or was assassinated while in office. Reagan broke the cycle… how much that altered fate can be attributable to his astrologer, I cannot say. Personally, I’d say the cosmic facts speak well of Ms. Quigley’s resume.
Shakespeare used MANY, MANY esoteric cues and omens in his brilliant plays. In Caesar, Portia (his wife) notices strange behavior on the part of animals and reads the portent of an eclipse as a danger to her husband. He fails to heed her “women’s intuition” and walks into a dark fate.
Where possible, I attempt to bring mystical components, esoteric teachings and astrologically apt references into this discussion because very few people are equipped to do so, or educated in this arcane nearly lost art of “as above, so below” celestial synthesis.
Sweet dreams…
I do not get why FOX drives people so crazy…If you do not like it, do not watch it. I find, say, Randi Rhodes to be a drunken loudmouth who falls down drunk amid claims she was mugged. I do not try to ban her, I simply do not listen to her. What is so hard about that?
QUOTE — I do not get why FOX drives people so crazy…If you do not like it, do not watch it. I find, say, Randi Rhodes to be a drunken loudmouth who falls down drunk amid claims she was mugged. I do not try to ban her, I simply do not listen to her. What is so hard about that? — UNQUOTE
I will attempt to answer, though I dont know where to begin …
I think if it was for their own personal entertainment, nobody would mind whatever Fox did. However, Rupert Murdoch (and fox) have an agenda, and they have been getting their way. If not for disinformation and propaganda from fox, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Rupert Murdoch is Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, reborn. (or might as well be, if it happens he is not). Only in this incarnation, he was born a Jew. He owns most major newspapers in Australia and much of the other media there. He owns a good slice of the media in England, and of course, he is most influential in the USA.
Partly becuase of Rupert (and fox), nobody elected into parliament is brave enough to criticize Israel, regardless of the terror that they perpetrate. In 2000, when it was unclear who was elected, Rupert (and fox) pushed very hard to get GWB into power. They succeeded. Only afterwards was it shown that Al Gore won. Rupert (and fox) pedalled the lies that pushed America to invade Iraq. And succeeded. Rupert (and fox) pedalled the war on terror and succeeded in allowing the government to monitor our email, telephone calls. He pushed for the arbitrary arrest an indefinite imprisonment of anyone “suspected” of having a link to terrorism. And succeeded. He is now pedalling lies for war on Iran. It looks like he may succeed.
How happy I would be, if this was just about our own personal entertainment. But the media was the other pillar of our democracy. Propaganda works, unfortunately, and it is being used to further the aims of foreigners from the country that may not be named. One of Rupert’s favorite techniques is to wave the flag and constantly talk in patriotic terms. How clever he is, because this is not the country that he cares about. He wont mind if he leaves it broken. And certainly the democracy is already broken.
Maybe when Hillary gets elected, she can establish a ministry, er Department, of Truth so as to stop Fox from brainwashing the people?