Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "The Ludicrous Agony of Rupert Murdoch" (NYT).
September 22, 2023
"Murdoch’s unhappiness and befuddlement is the throughline of... 'The Fall: The End of Fox News,' which is to hit shelves next week..."
"... days after Murdoch, 92, announced his retirement from the Fox Corporation and News Corporation boards. [The book] paints Fox’s owner as embarrassed by the channel’s vulgarity and horrified by its ultimate political creation, Donald Trump. Murdoch apparently very much wants to thwart the ex-president.... Though 'The Fall' is peppered with references to HBO’s 'Succession,' Murdoch comes off as the anti-Logan Roy, desperate for the approval of his mostly liberal children, with the hateful Fox News standing between them. 'He just wants his kids to love him,' Roger Ailes is quoted saying. 'And they don’t.'... ... Murdoch has... handed Fox to his son Lachlan... widely seen as the only true conservative among the Murdoch heirs.... The network may keep boosting Trump’s Republican primary opponents, but once the primaries are over, we can expect it to once again be the lucrative propaganda arm of Trump’s presidential campaign.... The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable. An unbound Trump may well become president again, bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end. If so, it will be in large part Murdoch’s fault...."
Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "The Ludicrous Agony of Rupert Murdoch" (NYT).
Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "The Ludicrous Agony of Rupert Murdoch" (NYT).
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76 comments:
Selective perception and projection is strong with Michelle Goldberg.
"She must be stopped! Deplatform her now!"
What a drama queen. Our Republic may come to a grotesque end indeed, and soon, but it will not be Trump’s doing. I’d put the national debt at places 1 through 3 on the list, the Deep State/Mockingbird Media/Big Tech conspiracy fourth, the open borders invasion fifth, the shambles that is our educational system sixth, and then I’d have to run down to about fiftieth place for Rupert Murdoch
An unbound Trump may well become president again, bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end.
One can only hope.
MSNBC did an hour on the FOX story last night at 5
It was a mix of wish casting, make believe, and mind reading. That harped on 'all the conspiracies' pushed. They too, used lots of clips from the movie, avoiding mentioning that at times. Also avoiding like the plague, the 4 years of Russia, Russia, Russia.
Let me get this Straight. The NYT's doesn't Like Fox News? WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED?
The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable
Then you should stop trying to govern and go for a hike…
What fucking garbage. Attention left: your policies are not as popular as your friends in the media try to portray them…and stop blaming Fox because you aren’t getting 100 percent of what you want in the time frame you want it in. Many of us to the right of you don’t tune in to Fox to learn how to think. Part of your problem is you see it that way…
Ungovernable means that there is a risk that if the Democrats do everything they want, they could lose an election, nothing more.
Michelle Goldberg is the writer who called Mitt Romney's wife a Nazi because she spoke out in praise of motherhood.
Trump and Fox- is there anything they can't do?
Accuse others for what YOUR side is guilty of....
"An unbound Trump may well become president again, bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end. If so, it will be in large part the DNC’s fault...."
Fixed.
The lefties…particularly, the white women lefties…are such nasty and hateful little shits. I never tire of saying it.
- Krumhorn
Michelle rivals Joe Biden in storytelling. Fiction as journalism from the NYT is all we get. Fish wrappings!
An unbound Trump may well become president again, bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end.
Nah. He’s way too nice a guy. Looking just at the cases of Russell Brand and David Portnoy these past couple days, we need someone who will teach journalists like Michelle Goldberg and Emily Heil a lesson or three about tolerance of other political viewpoints. And teach them good and hard.
"The electorate... and the politicians [chosen by that electorate]... have made this country ungovernable."
Well, shoot. Darn electorate.
And here I thought that massive compliance with lockdowns (in which I also participated for those first three months, until we determined that COVID wasn't a threat to most people and that it would be easier for those people to quarantine than for everybody to pretend to do so) would have been a sign of being governed.
Is tax evasion (not tax avoidance, which is of course legal) spiraling out of control?
Is it Mad Max out there on the roads? Or even the freeway-shooting scene from L.A. Story?
Are we awash in uncollected garbage? Only the worst parts of our sadly blighted cities (which, I'll give you, have their ungovernable areas, but I don't know as how anyone can reasonably blame Fox News or even Trump for that), are as gross as almost any street I saw in Playa del Carmen over the summer.
Ms. Goldberg, if your city appears ungovernable to you, maybe that's your fault and the fault of your electorate - who are not Fox watchers. If the rest of the country's stubborn failure to look like the Manhattan of your rosy past appears to you to equate to "ungovernable," maybe you should examine your premises.
But I'm grateful that she's so honest. Always a boon when they tell you exactly who they are.
A liberal democracy is a divergent dictatorship whose progress is limited in our constitutional republic.
Three bangers to start the morning Ann. Nice job.
Others have said it before, Fox News is a symptom, not a cause. Media, news and entertainment, tilted so far in one direction that there was a great market opportunity to serve up news that at least presents the other point of view.
CNN and the networks knew this, that is why they had "Two Men Arguing" shows like Crossfire and the Sunday morning talking head shows. But the left, instigated by "clown nose off" Jon Stewart attacked those shows as if they were tearing the country apart. Really, they were an outlet valve for a good portion of the country that felt unheard. At the end of the day, those sort of shows made it seem like you could have a major disagreement on policies but you could still get along with the other people.
Michelle Goldberg is such an ugly and unhappy person. She needs mental health treatment. Should Trump become Dictator, I hope he will see to it that she gets her lobotomy.
Except we had 4 years of Trump as President and our nation is so strong that it can survive having a driveling,wandering, senile old fart as President. Weird how that works.
Is this a review of a book, or an airing of Michelle Goldberg's views of the world?
The only way to save America is to finally bring the illiberal and truly grotesque Democratcy that has been forcibly imposed on us to a merciful end.
"The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable."
A country where liberals occasionally lose a fight is ungovernable.
The heart of this overwrought whine is the statement "The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable." In this context it means only that the rubes and clingers won't get in line - a state of affairs greatly to be lamented by Our Betters, to be sure, but the overlords have long since abandoned the notion of "consent of the governed." You must at least try to govern well, and in the interests of the governed, to achieve legitimacy and any hope of consent.
"Bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end" is a statement fraught with a complete lack of self-awareness. Government by Expert, with no regard to the aspirations of ordinary citizens, is pretty much the opposite of liberal democracy.
Professional animosity... hate.
This Trump fellow … again, what did he do that was so bad?
“Not to be crude, but politics is what comes out the @sshole. Wouldn’t you rather be up front, feeding the horse?” ~ Logan Roy
Despite condemnation he often receives, Fox News has around 2.5m to 3.5m prime-time viewers out of a U.S. population of 335m and Murdoch’s Times and UK Sky News could hardly be called right-wing populist outlets. Murdoch’s brilliance has been to give the people what they want and reflect what they are thinking, not to tell them what they should think.
It suits politicians and liberal voices to blame Murdoch when the pesky voters just won’t do what they’re told.
He’s also shown impeccable timing…
Goldberg with her usual lack of insight. She is often ridiculously wrong, but never in doubt.
Perfect fit for the NYT.
Pride, prejudice, and emphatic glee.
Think of what Fox News looked like, easily within our collective if not very recent memory. Contributors -- leading contributors, in fact -- included:
George Will
Jonah Goldberg
Steve Hayes
David Frum
Chris Stirewalt (Chris was an employee, actually)
Charles Krauthammer; RIP
Straight-news staff included Chris Wallace, Carl Cameron, Shepard Smith, Geraldo Rivera.
Of course plenty of other hosts and staff have left. Fired, in many cases, for cause. Glenn Beck. Bill O'Reilly. Ed Henry. Eric Bolling. Kimberly Guilfoyle.
In any event, Fox has been more or less systematically removed its cadre of credible conservatives in the Era of Trump. Will that continue to hold? The new Michael Wolff book, and a couple of recent actions may hold a different message. Fox canceled Dan Bongino. And fired Tucker Carlson. But we shall see. When we have a presidential election featuring an indicted/convicted/courtroom loser Trump, versus President Biden, we'll see how Fox deals with that.
I enjoy every video I watch of Douglas Murray showcasing the extent of Goldberg’s lack of understanding and inability to analyze issues. Oh, the look in her eyes is priceless.
Fox News was created to serve a niche market - the half the country that wasn't Democrats. For that, it was loudly derided as "Faux News" for the sin of not parroting and cheerleading the Democrat party line. No, such an outlet must not be allowed to survive!
Just for the record, the Democrats today are treating Trump exactly the same way they treated Lincoln in 1859.
Fox News was created to serve a niche market - the half the country that wasn't Democrats. For that, it was loudly derided as "Faux News" for the sin of not parroting and cheerleading the Democrat party line. No, such an outlet must not be allowed to survive!
More like il-liberal democracy by mob rule. So thank god Trump will end it and we can get back to being a constitutional republic we were always meant to be.
The problems with progressives is they don't know shit and they don't learn shit.
Fuck Goldberg and the equally sclerotic Malcolm Gladwell.
The end of any news that isn't KGB+Democrat Party propaganda. *fixed
"The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable."
ROTFLMAO. The entire Biden administration, the Ds in Congress, and D mayors and governors are, for the most part, the biggest group of morons in US history. They have put the country on the path to a complete fiscal, political, economic, and social collapse.
News from the front in the New Good War: A notorious sinner burns in agony.
The faithful rest assured.
The reaction of the TDS afflicted is far more more dangerous to the Republic’s future than Trump himself. Trump,does not care about preserving the Constitution but he is too much of a buffoon to really do anything about it.
The Russian collusion hoax and the investigation it birthed.
The conspiracy between the Democrats, bureaucrats, and the media to bury the Hunter laptop story.
The acceptance of censoring information deemed by a few to be “disinformation”.
The pushing of things like DEI and Trans ideology which are designed specifically to subvert liberal democracy.
The effort to criminalize parents exercising Constitutional rights.
All these things will lead to the end of liberal Democracy before Trump could.
The fact is that Trump’s antics following the election, while confirming that he is unfit for office, all failed miserably. This has been born out as,late,as this week when Trump identified candidates in two separate special elections were trounced. The American public has repeatedly shown that they reject Trump’s behavior.
It is people like Michelle Goldberg who provide the best argument for electing Trump a third time. Same applies Chuckles, Dick, and Lonejackass. Imagine their anguish if Trump wins in 2024? It would be the sweetest tears ever produced in all of history.
"The electorate...[has] made this country ungovernable."
Count de Monet:
It is said that the people are revolting.
King Louis XVI:
You said it! They stink on ice!
"desperate for the approval of his mostly liberal children"
Hey, Rupert, how did they turn out to be so liberal? What does it say about your children that their love for you depends on your political behavior?
"the hateful Fox News standing between them"
Fox as a whole seems squishy more than hateful, but there's a lot to hate in these US of A, isn't there--crime and opioid deaths and open borders and the Russia collusion hoax and freebies to Iran and corrupton at the highest level and --.
"have made this country ungovernable"
Just a tell or an actual gaffe? Governability of the country depends on the deplorables shutting up and having no outlet, and on the prog elite manufacturing consent though its own MSM propaganda arm.
"bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end"
Truly grotestque that actual voters might actually vote for the wrong person. Elections endanger "our democracy."
I lost interest in Goldberg a very long ago. Shortly after Althouse made her look so ineffectual on Bloggingheads. Remember bloggingheads?
Goldberg claims that Murduch is "horrified" by Fox News's "ultimate political creation, Donald Trump." This is, of course, wrong. (Coming form Michelle Goldberg, you would expect that). If any media created Donald Trump, it was MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, etc. They couldn't get enough of him and, in my opinion, at the behest of the DNC and the Hilary Clinton campaign, practically campaigned for him in the primaries in the mistaken belief that he's be easy to beat.
What nonsense. Fox was doing everything it could in 2015/2016 to prevent Trump from getting the nomination and get elected. When it failed, they doubled down in 2020, having Wallace join Biden's debate team, and calling Arizona early for Biden.
Now, they're doing the same thing. the next debate R will be like the last one, full of libtard questions and attacks on trump. And they fired Tucker.
Their real problem is no one cares. They've become CNN Light. I haven't watched since Tucker left. No watches Brett (Im basically a liberal) Baird. And Hannity's audience is made up of Senior Citizens with low IQs. Laura is a big zero.
Murdoch's family is embarrassed by Fox News conservatism. Well, get rid of it. And watch Fox News get lower ratings than MSNBC and have zero influence. They can't do leftism better than MSNBC and CNN> And libtards will never watch them. They'll just lose the Right. And no one will care.
The insane "solutions" developed by the left, hinging largely on socialist teaching, coupled by half-wit pols "have made this country ungovernable."
How did the NYT allow the word befuddlement in an article about an old person today?
It's not an association they want their readers making.
Trump is a symptom, not a cause. It was the “establishment” figures in both parties that have made this country ungovernable. Remember 20 years of sacrifice and expense in Iraq and Afghanistan? Remember the Tea Party and how it was mocked and suppressed? Remember how Sarah Palin was treated by the press? Remember Hillary Clinton’s unstoppable sense of entitlement?
It wasn’t Fox News. It was Bill Kristol, Victoria Nuland, David Brooks, the Clintons, the Obamas, George Will, Bret Stephens, the cast of criminals at the FBI and the CIA, the talking hairdos on cable and broadcast, the NYT and WaPoo that gave us Trump.
"The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable."
Evidence abounds that Democrats can't govern: Afghanistan, the border, energy dependence, Ukraine, inflation, blue cities, etc. That doesn't mean the country is ungovernable.
"An unbound Trump may well become president again, bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end. If so, it will be in large part Murdoch’s fault...."
If only. "Liberal democracy", a grotesque concept in itself, needs to end in the face of a return to a representative, constitutional republic.
Goldberg is an hysterical fabulist whipping lefty moonbats into a frenzy.
Michelle is right. We were governable when the news media purveyed a monolithic view of the world and how events should be interpreted.
But long predating Fox was talk radio and its avatar, Rush Limbaugh. The reason he and it caught on so wildly, leaving no room for "liberal" talk radio, was that its audience who'd been ignored or worse for decades suddenly had a place to hear the world reflected as they believed.
After eight years of Limbaugh nationally, Murdoch realized that if he built it, they would come. (The blondes didn't hurt either.)
chickelit said...
I lost interest in Goldberg a very long ago. Shortly after Althouse made her look so ineffectual on Bloggingheads. Remember bloggingheads?
I was just remembering the same. Goldman was a very poor debater. Althouse calmly and politely tore her to shreds.
chickelit said...
I lost interest in Goldberg a very long ago. Shortly after Althouse made her look so ineffectual on Bloggingheads. Remember bloggingheads?
I was just remembering the same. Goldman was a very poor debater. Althouse calmly and politely tore her to shreds.
Vulgarity? Point to one example or shut up.
I stopped watching Fox News when they ditched Carlson, but they are pretty wimpy in their brand of conservatism.
Every network, Fox included, needs Trump for ratings and advertising dollars.
Michelle Goldberg? Check!
AMDG said...
"The reaction of the TDS afflicted is far more more dangerous to the Republic’s future than Trump himself. Trump,does not care about preserving the Constitution but he is too much of a buffoon to really do anything about it."
Man. I wish you were as smart as you think you are.
"An unbound Trump may well become president again, bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end."
Oh do F off - Michelle. The grotesque end is NOW with Crook Biden, the criminal, - and our open southern border.
Is it any wonder the left are so filled with ravenous drooling mindless all-consuming Hitler-hate- for Trump.
If your children don't love you because you have a different political ideology, you have done a poor job raising your children.
If you have done a good job, you each recognize that the other has different views and you accept that. Then when you hear others with similar views, you may disagree with them, but it's easier to remember they are just people who think differently and treat them civilly.
The fact that so much "othering" has been going on lately and people are so hateful to anyone who dares have a different opinion makes me think that lots of parents have not taught the kind of lessons they needed to. (Although, in some cases it's clear the hateful children are acting in the same close-minded way their parents do.)
Granted Michelle Goldberg is a sad, unconstructed fabulist. That said, it's clear, at least to me, that *none* of the Murdochs have any truck with Trump or his policies. Rupert and his clan are unreconstructed globalists, Lachlan being chief among them after dear old dad. To call him a conservative is call Cocaine Mitch one as well. The family collectively hate Trump and everything he stands for. Now that Tucker is gone and DeSantis, the Murdoch designated favorite, is sinking like a stone, it will be interesting which dead GOPe horse the family will back next through Fox and their newspapers. My guess is "principled conservative" Nikki Haley, who is in it for the campaign warchest rather than the win.
"The electorate that Fox helped shape" has always been one of the more egregious and expansive of the liberal lies and myths. Fox merely tapped into an audience that had been ignored and had nowhere to turn for decades. These people already held the values and views that they have now, Fox was the only institution willing to speak to them. I know because I grew up amongst them long before Fox existed.
The heart of this overwrought whine is the statement "The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable."
@hawkeyedjb, yeah, I also noticed that Goldberg assumes as a given that the role of journalism is to shape political opinion, as if the hoi polloi can’t figure out that gasoline and food prices have gone up and their wages haven’t kept pace without the assistance of Fox News. As if they can’t discover that books in their kids’ middle school libraries amount to graphic and explicit gay porn without the assistance of Fox News. As if they cannot see for themselves that Joe Biden is a malicious, senile, fool without he assistance of Fox News. (Actually, thst last one might be close to the truth, given the eagerness with which the other news media stand shoulder to shoulder and lock arms to protect Joe and the Biden crime family.)
But if the only way the Democrats can govern the USA is to confiscate everybody’s guns and insist the citizenry stop that pernicious thinking for themselves and fall into line, then are they even fit to govern the American people?
rcocean said:
"And Hannity's audience is made up of Senior Citizens with low IQs."
**********
As Meade asked of Left Bank in another thread:
How do you know that, rcocean?
Or are you just flinging snot?
This piece is pure "bubblegum--something for those in her bubble to chew on. It's not meant to be swallowed and digested.
AMDG: "The fact is that Trump’s antics following the election, while confirming that he is unfit for office, all failed miserably."
AMDG is perfectly representative of the failure of the moronic DeSantis online "influencers" to do anything other than alienate the near entirety of the republican primary voters.
AMDG is the Steve Deace of Althouse blog.
The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable
Another hoary dichotomy raises its ugly head: when a lousy democrat is ruining everything the excuse is "this country ungovernable" but any problems during Republican terms are the fault of the governors not the ungovernable masses. Sounds like they are tacitly admitting Joe's plan to replace the American electorate with a more easily governed foreign born electorate. They want sheep, not voters.
However, we all remember how well basic things were operating just three years ago: low interest rates, stable energy supplies, cooperation with Mexico to stop illegal crossings, people returning to work after the stupid COVID lockdowns, China and Russia quiet and cooperative, NoKo remarkably less belligerent.
I'm so old I remember when the country was equally ungovernable under Obama, Bill Clinton (too bad his d!ck didn't shrink like his Presidency), and Jimmy Carter. Not quite old enough to remember LBJ or JFK but I have it on good authority they had a tough time, too
Reminded me of a conversation Michael Barone recounted that he had with the head of a mainstream news organization:
BARONE: All your people are Democrats. How can the news they present not be biased?
NEWS HEAD: My people are professionals. They're trained to be objective.
BARONE: What would happen if they were all Republicans?
NEWS HEAD: Well then it would be biased.
(Summed up the worldview well, I thought.)
Joey “Bananas” Biden, Big Mike.
Hannity ain’t my cup of tea, but then neither are most of RC ocean’s posts.
"AMDG is the Steve Deace of Althouse blog."
LOL!
There is only one explanation for why the corporations which own the networks do not do what they do in every other aspect of corporate behavior--diversify to capture all available markets.
They are controlled by the political powers that be.
Why don't NBC, ABC, CBS have some off-brand cable outlet that runs conservative (or even moderate) news and opinion? There is a Yuge market for it. But they don't. Instead they double down and suppress anything even remotely close to offering an opinion source other than the approved lefty narrative.
Car makers, liquor corporations, food producers, clothing makers, restaurant corporations, hotels--all of them diversify to capture market. I never went to B-school and I get that. But never the networks; never the news outlets.
I am fairly certain that one or more of our resident fascists will shortly check in to lecture about how "principle" keeps the networks from doing so. it is to laugh.
I seldom read the NYT so what I know Michelle Goldberg best from is the Munk Debate: Be it resolved, don't trust the mainstream media. It did not make me a fan of hers. It also made me lose any liking I had for Malcolm Gladwell.
As sands in the hourglass, such are the days of our lives.
Amadeus 48 said...
Trump is a symptom, not a cause. It was the “establishment” figures in both parties that have made this country ungovernable. Remember 20 years of sacrifice and expense in Iraq and Afghanistan? Remember the Tea Party and how it was mocked and suppressed? Remember how Sarah Palin was treated by the press? Remember Hillary Clinton’s unstoppable sense of entitlement?
It wasn’t Fox News. It was Bill Kristol, Victoria Nuland, David Brooks, the Clintons, the Obamas, George Will, Bret Stephens, the cast of criminals at the FBI and the CIA, the talking hairdos on cable and broadcast, the NYT and WaPoo that gave us Trump.
9/22/23, 10:09 AM
THIS!!!^^^^^
Hunter Biden's tax payer funded Hooker said...
Is it any wonder the left are so filled with ravenous drooling mindless all-consuming Hitler-hate- for Trump.
9/22/23, 11:04 AM
FINALLY!! You admit you are on the left!!!
What a sad hallway that must be, the Times' editorial department. David Brooks comes stumbling in from an airport lounge, grasping a greasy receipt for two double scotches and a burger, searching for Gail Collins to tuck him into bed. Instead, he encounters Nicholas Kristoff, who rebukes him from not spending more time kneeling in huts with Somali women, like he does for lunch. The building shakes as Thomas Friedman's private helicopter squishes two of his illegal immigrant helicopters blade polishers on the roof as he returns from another climate crisis confab in the Hamptons. Roxanne Gay shouts that none of this is funny while Mara Gay screams at the sight of an American flag. Jennifer Finney Boylan cuts off his penis again in the ladies room while bitching that all women need to just shut up like his wife does, as Ross Douthat sets off the fire alarms burning his daily paean to Astaroth.
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