As noted by an account on the TVNewser blog (7/11/11), on ABC‘s This Week panel there was some talk of Rupert Murdoch losing his U.S. television licenses over the News of the World phone hacking scandal. There is a “character clause” for broadcast licensees, and the current scandal would go a long way towards demonstrating a certain type of bad behavior. Here’s how panelist Steven Brill put it:
News Corp has a lot of FCC licenses. There’s still a clause in the federal communications law that requires that you have to be of good character to have such a license, and I was reading last night just in the approval that they gave Comcast to take over NBC, there was actually some guy who challenged the character of Comcast because when they installed a cable system somewhere they had hurt his building, and didn’t pay for it. And this became a big legal proceeding, action.
So here I am reasonably certain that someone, maybe someone from the political left or whoever, is going to make a big deal of whether they are fit to have their FCC licenses under the current management.
Once upon a time, Extra! raised this issue with General Electric‘s NBC licenses, in “Felons on the Air: Does GE‘s Ownership of NBC Violate the Law?” (11-12/94). GE‘s record at the time including defrauding the Pentagon, fraud and money laundering. All that, unfortunately, didn’t disqualify them from getting valuable licenses to control a hefty share ofthe public airwaves.
Here’s panelist Steven Brill:
I think a media corp would pretty much have to hold torchlight sacrifices of six-year-olds, and dismember their pets as a prelude, outside FCC headquarters every other Tuesday evening – with two weeks’ advance notice given – for this clause to be upheld.
Best have the ceremonies block the sidewalk, as well.
I don’t imagine they’d garner much coverage, but they’d be difficult for the commissioners to ignore.
Presumably.
Maybe a few muggings of elderly passersby, just for good measure.
I expect that y’all will continue to follow any and all breaking news of Fox and News International/News Corp.’s involvement in wiretaps, computer hacking, etc, in the UK.
Meanwhile, the FBI is supposed to investigate wiretaps and computer hacking into relatives of 9/11 victims. Yeah, right. I’ll believe the Obama people and Congress when I see it. Better yet, I’ll believe in the tooth fairy if Congress finally investigates Murdoch’s empire and actually subpoenas witnesses to testify under oath.
The “Murdoch Gate” scandal unfolding in the UK is already a joke. After scuttling News of the World and some 200 reporters — Murdoch sacking Rebekah Brooks at News International is just more bombast. It’s probable that even as more Murdoch employees “take one for the team” the Cameron/Clegg regime will hang onto their fragile coalition.
Witness the lack of determination on Her (His?) Majesty’s Government part to “lock down the crime scenes” and gather evidence for Crown prosecution(s). A lot of e-mail activity, document shredding, and hacked computer files in News Int’l.’s possession have already been removed. No wonder reporters are keeping this story alive. The Tory-Liberal Coalition has about as much desire to prosecute Murdoch as they do in making him Lord Protector. Oh — I forgot. He already is Lord Protector.
But isn’t it a bit odd that “Murdoch Gate” comes up at a time when the US Congress is contemplating the biggest cuts in social spending in human history. Never mind that the scandal also comes juxtaposed amidst a recent spate of industrial actions and public protests against spending cuts and job redundancies in the UK.
The real quarry of the scandal is to distract America on the eve of a financial meltdown world-wide and the ultimate excuse needed for government by fiat.
The Left in both countries are chomping at the bit to finally get their teeth into Murdoch’s demagogy and sense of foul play. And who can blame them? Except — if they do — they(we) could be making the biggest mistake yet committed in the new “Post-Friedmanist” millennium. The working class will take their eye off the ball on the hard times ahead of them as well as their subjection to the added penalty of having to subsidize a Life of Riley for mega-wealthy bourgeoisie.
In other words, what better way to congeal a pseudo-critical day of “debt ceiling” reckoning on August 2 than to fly the Wall Street and Goldman Sachs/Federal Reserve air ministry on patrol — with Murdoch’s empire and his WSJ as wing men?
That the debt ceiling crisis might go down to the wire has already been acknowledged by Timothy Geithner. He’s used words to this effect in recent interviews — as if to permanently damn the fate of the working class in order to save wage slavery. If he gets his way — he gets his way. If the public protests — finally! — all we need to add to this discription is that it will be done at the point of a Blackwater gun.
Y’all have read the weblog “Fox News Hounds: We Watch Fox So You Don’t Have To.” Right? When did it occur to you that the goddamn thing was a false flag operation? My “epiphany” was the day News Hounds ran a story about one of its “investigative journalists” getting mugged by pro-Mubarak supporters at a Cairo demonstration — only to be picked up later that day by Mubarak’s police thugs and accused of being Israeli agents. The story might have been a little more believable if: 1) Fox had any investigative reporters, 2) the real reporter wasn’t a guy from Swedish TV and his cameraman wasn’t from Denmark, and 3) the Israeli agent “line” didn’t claim that Cairo was in the Gaza Strip.
[OK — so I’m lying about the “Gaza Strip” thing. News Hounds and Fox — for their part — lied about having anybody on the ground in Egypt. AIPAC handles a lot of PR work for Mubarak and then sends their shit over to Roger Ailes and his pundits. I.E., “ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”]
The best one could make of the story was that it was probably the experiences of two journalists and two or more camera people working the same demonstration — with “Hounds” splicing the two together. One — or both — teams probably had no connexion to News Corp., either. BFD.
Nothing makes Murdoch and Roger Ailes happier than controlling their critics. Especially the dupes who fall for their shit day after day — like I used to do. But d’ya ever wonder why a supposedly left-wing blog never has to campaign for funding? Meanwhile, MoveOn is going to the public at $5 a hit just to keep the heat on our elected cheapskates so they’ll keep their hands off of SSA and Medicaid/Medicare. Meanwhile, life at News Hounds is simply too good to be true.
I’d like to see someone — should they agree with what I’m saying — really to stick it to Murdoch in his “hour of need.” His false flag shit has got to go, too.
The truth is always hard to swollowâ┚¬Ã‚¦I had to swollow their incompetence.