More below the fold, along with what Rupert Murdoch has to do with it:
Earlier this morning, I spotted “What Rupert Wrought,” and let it bide time in its own window until I’d vented about health care. I’m glad I waited. Romenesko sums it up adroitly:
“The very same power-hungry plutocrats whom the old Post loved to torment are given the royal treatment by Murdoch’s Post — until they fall, that is, and then the Post gleefully piles on.”
NOTED: “When New York Times editor Howell Raines talked of ‘flooding the zone’ in terms of how the paper covered critical events, he probably did not realize the debt he owed to its early practitioners at the New York Post.”
How “What Rupert Wrought” starts out:
New York existed before Murdoch. But unlike the staggered, crisis-plagued ascent of fellow tycoon Donald Trump, his rise has been so steady that it has come to appear almost inevitable. It’s easy to forget that his entry into American consciousness was a reckless bet on the future of New York. …
First, re the POLL: My keyboard antics made me accidentally type something there, and I can’t erase it now. Forgive.
MURDOCH: One reason I tell everybody — repeatedly — to never get DIRECTTV satellite. The bastard owns it.
Let’s see … what else should we boycott that’s his?
just bought DirecTV. It’s the only way I can see my beloved Yanks on TV, and I only live 90 miles from the city!
You can’t see the same games via DISH?
no, I don’t think so. DirecTV has an exclusive MLB contract. Plus, because Comcast cable shows all the Phils and 76er games, and they won’t allow DirecTV to air their sports programming, I can’t even see most Philly games.
It’s unbelieveable.
Yeah … five years ago when we moved up here, where satellite is just about essential (can’t get any stations from Seattle because of the mountains) and the local cable kinda sucks, we checked out both. People told me then that if sports were my BIG thing, to get DirectTV. Sigh. Well, check it out anyway: DISH Never know. AND (!) you’d get all those COMMIE stations that I watch on DISH — LINKTV and Free Speech TV.
Murdoch is a brilliant businessman. He selects his people wisely and he kas an instinctive feel and understanding of his market.
He will dumb down for as long as the market pays him to, he will support the Republicans for as long as it pays him to.
Forget the man, he is a product of our times and an excellent exploiter of what we have created. We need to look at the underlying conditions and causes which make the Murdochs so successful.
How does the Democrat Party address these issues without being anti-business?