Perparing for the Silencing of the Little Guy

As Williams starts his new full-time job on Fox and Olbermann is suspended from MSNBC, I can't help but be drawn into a conspiracy theory.  I know, conspiracy theories are bad, we did land on the moon, after all.  But the truth is that people do sometimes conspire.  Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, but people conspire.

This is evident in a brief selected history of television journalism in the last 50 years:

• Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and David Brinkley (among others) subtly led the American public to left-leanings throughout their time on the air waves.
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• "News magazines" like 60 minutes, 20/20, and Nightline expanded the role of opinion laced 'investigative' journalism on T.V.
• The expansion of Talk radio began a backlash among liberal t.v. news broadcasters to provide more venues for opinion, particularly as 24 hour news cycles were created by cable news networks.
• Fox News was created by Murdoch with a unique commitment to fairness that sheds light on the radical left leanings of other news networks.  This development reveals the 'conspiracy of silence' that had existed among the intellectual elite in journalism.
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• When they can no longer deny their own bias, networks and politicians begin to attack the Fox messenger.  George Soros provides the funding, and the President of the United States provides the credibility for these ad hominem attacks.

The latest action of the conspirators seems to be to fire/discredit  employees who are not popular with the general audience of  their primary employer.  In  order to discredit Juan Williams, NPR had to fain shock at him expressing concern about flying with Muslims.  In order to distance itself from Keith Olbermann, MSNBC has to pretend that it, and it's parent corporation GE, as well as it's many employees, don't spend lavish sums to promote the very candidates Olbermann supported.

Why discredit and distance yourselves from some of your most visible warriors?  This is an obvious trick used by those who wish to establish their credibility.  You sacrifice some of your own in the name of ethics, just before you make false charges of ethics violations against a real innocent.  They say, "You see, we have taken action against those who were misusing their power.  Now you must do the same to... (fill in the blank) ... in order to prove your credibility."

Of course, whomever 'they' choose to hang will either be a meaningless puppet of theirs, or a someone completely ethical and therefore abhorrent to them.

Now we can only wait and see.

When Media Centers Collide

A few years ago there was a brief flap in the media when Brit Hume openly scoffed at Juan's opinion on the air. Brit Hume spent days explaining that he respected Juan, liked him personally, etc. Juan's troubles with NPR may have begun around that time. He stayed with Fox as well as NPR.

Fox has always presented itself as "fair and balanced." That means providing equal time to people like Juan, and to Juan himself. Viewers may or may not think it's drivel, and fast-forward through his comments as I do, but part of the integrity of Fox is that they provide this equity of opinion.

On a financial level, Fox is responding with their hard-earned dollars to this week's contributions by notorious liberal George Soros to NPR and to Media Matters, and on another level the Huffington Post. Soros contributed over $2 million this week to the organizations, and that is the figure Fox is contributing to Juan. It is a tactical move, putting their money where their mouth is, to counter the Soros donations. I found this aspect to be a true shot-across-the-bow move by a media giant that has been falsely accused of a right-wing stance, when all accurate research has shown Fox to be the most fair of all news networks in the presentation of opinions.

The battle lines are drawn. This will be very interesting in the coming months. Maybe even Juan will be interesting.