Yes, I know that a lefty journalist railing against Fox News is about as surprising as a snowstorm when Al Gore opens his mouth about global warming. But this piece by Robert Niles deserves special mention, because it’s in a trade publication for journalists, the Online Journalism Review.
Niles takes advantage of the indefensible hacking practices by some News Corp. employees to justify the demise of the entire company, specifically including Fox News. And he’s calling for other journalists to join his crusade. Put your bias detectors on maximum for more “objective” news stories about the evils of News Corp. and Fox News.
“Fox News has subsumed the Republican Party power structure in the United States, to the point where GOP operative David Frum once said on ABC’s Nightline: ‘Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.’ “
For context, “GOP operative” Frum is no Karl Rove. He’s one of those self-described conservatives embraced by the left because he attacks other conservatives in the GOP.
As a lefty himself, Niles’ motivation for wishing the parent of Fox News to fail is pretty transparent. So he tries to put on an ideological fig leaf:
“Don’t mistake my opposition to Fox, and News Corp., as simple opposition to its political ideology. My argument is about power, and the danger of allowing a single entity assume too great a voice in our public discussion.”
Niles’ argument may be about power, but his attack on Fox and News Corp. is entirely rooted in his ideological opposition. By his own logic, Niles should also want the New York Times Company to fail, since that entity, moth-eaten as it is, still sets the national agenda for the TV networks, except for Fox. A major New York Times investigative piece is big news that influences politics, even if’s a transparently bogus left-wing hatchet job the paper’s ombudsman criticized for unsupported innuendo.
And if Fox News is pushing Republican beliefs, then by the same standard the New York Times is pushing the Democrats’ agenda on issues such as global warming and social issues and the budget.
(Digression: The budget link goes to one of those phony “let’s see you reduce the deficit” exercises the left likes to promote, presenting a hand-picked range of options, designed to show you just how hard it is for the government to cut spending and how necessary it is to raise taxes. As one example of how the options are skewed, reducing Social Security benefits for future retirees and repealing ObamaCare are not listed).
However, Niles doesn’t apply the same standard to the New York Times and the other left-leaning media outlets in print and in television. It’s just News Corp. and Fox News, the only national TV news network friendly to conservatives, that Niles wants to get rid of.
High-minded rhetoric about opposing power is just a smokescreen: Niles is opposed to people having access to a network that’s not biased toward the left. He’s of a piece with openly leftist groups such as Media Matters, and with the Obama Administration, which unsuccessfully tried to delegitimize Fox News as a journalistic outfit. But because Niles claims to be speaking in defense of non-ideological journalistic values, his hypocrisy is much greater.
Niles writes:
The abuse of power is an issue than can unite liberals and conservatives, and progressives and libertarians, within the journalism industry. I was inspired to write today by Howard Owens, who tweeted earlier this week: “There’s an aspect of the News Corp. scandal not being discussed — that bigness leads to things like this.”
Since Niles mentioned libertarians, yours truly is one Libertarian who doesn’t buy into the “abuse of power” argument as a reason for wishing News Corp. to fail. Abuse of power is less of a worry in the media than it has ever been, thanks to the Internet. Alternative sources of media such as blogs have sprouted up vigorously, and the former intellectual oligopoly of national media outlets like the former Big Three networks — ABC, CBS and NBS — is no more.
That proliferation of alternatives is what’s really worrying Niles. No longer can a self-appointed media elite control what Americans get in their news. And across the pond, News Corp. was trying to give Britons a similar alternative to the BBC’s nanny-state programming.
Howard Owens, a friend of mine and perceptive journalist, is quite right of course about how the size of an organization leads to slimy practices. There’s a smell to the conduct of Murdoch and his lieutenants in all this that deserves to be aired. I wish to see News Corp. clean up its act, not to fail. While Fox News is far from perfect, it has on balance provided a great service to Americans, vastly broadening the ideological scope of what’s presented on national TV news. Naturally, the liberal-left media types hate losing their privileged position.
And “abuses” of power have occurred at other major media outfits besides News Corp. But according to Niles, only News Corp. deserves to fail:
“Yes, I’m rooting for the downfall of News Corp., and the people who run it.
And as a journalist, you should be, too. And telling your readers.”
Sorry Niles. As a journalist, I’m rooting for more ideological diversity in the media. Following the agenda of the liberal-left claque that still dominates journalism is no way to achieve it.
—————————————————————–
(DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed here are mine, and not necessarily those of my employer, the North County Times.)