Murdoch's Fingerprints on New York Post

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Nov. 6, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

             Proving that the New York Post is a propaganda extension of the more popular Fox News Network, the tabloid declared “America must elect Romney today.”  Slapping every fair-minded journalist in the face, Murdoch runs his media empire like his own Mickey Mouse Club.  It’s one thing for newspapers and TV stations to ediorialize, it’s still another for those same editorial decisions to filter into every story from front to back pages.  “All This Office Needs Is a Leader,” asserted the Post, blasting President Barack Obama for not putting on his Superman’s cape and fixing an economy in ruins.  Any fair-minded person knows that the economy crashed-and-burned in 2007-08, prompting former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan to conjecture it would take years, if not a decade, for the economy to recover from the ruins of former President George W. Bush.

            Murdoch’s Post can’t be honest about anything with readers when its heavy-handed overlord puts his fingerprints on anything political, especially the presidential election.  No one knows what Murdoch and Co. heard about what GOP nominee Mitt Romney planned to do to fix what the Post sees as a disastrous economy, other than cut taxes for Rupert’s economic class.  “Scrape it down to bedrock, and Mitt Romney knows that there is but one issue in this campaign:  America’s economy, and the demonstrated inability of President Obama to cope with it,” wrote the New York Post.  Any good news on the economy, whether it’s a drop in the unemployment rate or adding 171,000 jobs in October, the Post ignores and pretends it didn’t happen.  Obama can’t “cope” with the U.S. economy yet the Dow Jones Industrials is up over 70% from the day Barack was sworn in Jan. 20, 2009.

            Speaking in the most extreme hyperbole, the Post blasted Obama for not doing enough to fix the economy.  “Obama says he inherited the mess, but he’s done nothing to fix it.  Borrow, spend, regulate and redistribute is no a prescription for substantive growth, yet that has been the totality of his program,” wrote the Post.  Murdoch & Co. knows how the stock market has grown since Obama’s been in office.  They also know the U.S. auto industry faced bankruptcy and now hires three shifts in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, those very places poised to say thank you to Barack on Nov. 6.  Murdoch’s disgraces American journalism forcing his ethically-minded journalists to accept his pernicious propaganda that gives a one-sided story, not letting the facts speak for themselves.  Not reporting in the Post on the National Assn. of Realtors’ positive news is just one more example.

            Editors at the Post only want to mirror Fox News that has nothing good to say about Obama.  Post editors don’t reflect on what went wrong in the Bush administration economic policies.  During the Bush years, Murdoch knows the White House borrowed, spent, regulated and redistributed, just like it’s accusing the Obama administration.  When Bush signed the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill Feb 9, 2005, Murdoch wasn’t screaming about the $1.2 trillion ten-year cost.  Post editors didn’t rail against the $2 trillion cost of both the Afghan and Iraq Wars, nor did they admit the Bush administration went to war in Iraq without a sound national security rationale.  Yet to Murdoch, the Post and Fox News, only Obama commits egregious mistakes costing the nation trillions.  Murdoch & Co. didn’t complain when the nations was losing 800,000 jobs a month during the last days of Bush’s second term.

            Calling the Obama administration “a catastrophic breakdown of U.S. leadership,” the Post can’t explain why banks have sufficient capital to conduct normal business, advancing the U.S. stock market under Obama’s economic policies.  If Barack were really “catastrophic,” Wall Street would have responded in kind.  Voters now decide how “catastrophic” Obama’s handling of the economy, knowing that consumer confidence is at a five-year high.  “Americans today may a fateful choice,” wrote the Post.  “Will they continue down the path of terminal indebtedness and endless economic decay—or will they try something different, something more hopefully,” sound more like a GOP or Romney campaign ad than an independent newspaper.  Romney and his VP Ryan have promised to reduce government spending against the advice of Federal Reserve Board.Chairm Ben S. Bernanke.

            Allowing an independent newspaper to be hijacked by Murdoch’s NewsCorp makes a mockery out of American journalism.  Using any newspaper or TV station to serve as a propaganda tool of the GOP opens up real questions about “free speech” under the First Amendment.  Papers like the Post or TV networks like Fox News need to disclose openly to unsuspecting consumers their political leanings.  While it’s OK for newspapers to editorialize, it’s not OK to pretend to be “fair-and-balanced” when they’re really unfair and biased.  Like any other product, news consumers need to have warning labels, especially if companies promise to give two sides of the story.  When the dust settles after the election, the GOP needs to take inventory of whether their current media strategy works.  If things go as expected, there’s going to be a lot of soul searching in the Republican Party.

 John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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