Sir Rupert

If you are too young to remember the “yellow press” of the Hearst empire, you can see exactly how it operated by watching Fox News.

It was the Los Angeles Times that interviewed Av Westin, executive director of the National Television Academy and former producer of ABC’s news programs. Westin was interviewed by the Times in connection with charges by a former Fox News producer that the staff of the news channel is under constant pressure to conform to the political views of Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. Westin noted: "Roger runs the place with an iron hand, and he was put in place there by Murdoch, who selected him for his politics." Westin also stated that Sir Rupert’s politics are even seen in "the uniform smirks and body language" of the Fox News reporters and that the owner's personal bias permeates the news "to an extent that isn't true anywhere else in American journalism."

You don’t remember the “yellow press”? Of course you don’t. Even I am too young to remember it. But the phrase came from the turf wars of the two leading newspaper publishers, Hearst and Pulitzer. One of the things that they fought over was the use of a popular cartoon series of the time, “The Yellow Kid”. First one owned it and then the other. They often used the "Yellow Kid" to sensationalize stories and to discredit the stories of other newspapers. The "Yellow Kid" was also used to sway public opinion on important issues such as the Spanish-American war.

With so much competition between the newspapers, the news was over-dramatized and altered to fit story ideas that publishers and editors thought would sell the most papers and stir the most interest for the public so that news boys could sell more papers on street corners.

In this century, we have substituted TV news for newspaper boys

That is why I suggest you find as many news sources as possible if you want to know the truth. You won’t find it in one place.

May I suggest adding the Economist to your reading list and McNeil/Lehrer for your television viewing? But please, get more than one view!

See http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Rupert%20Murdoch for more info on Sir Rupert