When the News Corporation took over the Wall Street Journal last year I had very mixed feelings. News Corp. already owns the NY Post, the Weekly Standard, the London Times as well as many other papers, and above all Fox News. What concerns me is that virtually the entire right is concentrated in a single corporation, so that if anything were to go wrong it would be a disaster. As long as Rupert Murdoch is alive and Roger Ailes runs Fox News there is no problem. But Murdoch’s heirs are all more liberal, so if he dies it could be disastrous for the right. Never mind that there is a winning formula as Fox News trumps all the other cable networks and earns more than all the major broadcast and cable news media combined. There might be pressure to move in a more liberal direction and thus mimic all the other networks and newspapers.
There is a recurring pattern of heirs to fortunes and foundations often being more liberal than the founder and abandoning his philosophy. This undoubtedly has something to do with being socially acceptable to other elites, most of whom are liberal. The Wall Street Journal has had a consistent philosophy since its founding and was always independent. It was sad to see it folded into another company. It has already undergone changes that are not very appealing. As long as Roger Ailes is around Fox News is safe, given that he started it and continues to guide it. He is the key here. Watch Roger Ailes. If he is no longer there it does not bode well for the future.
The “liberals” cannot abide a single conservative major media outlet and will do anything they can to eliminate this company. The Obama administration tried without success to boycott Fox News and exclude them from press conferences, but even the other media thought this was going too far and the attempt failed. Howard Dean has said he wants to shut down Fox News and it is a constant obsession of left-wing activists who cannot abide even one right-leaning media outlet. At this point government action would be too obvious and heavy-handed, but not so heredity. At this point all we can do is pray for Rupert Murdoch and hope that somehow a better succession will occur.
There is a recurring pattern of heirs to fortunes and foundations often being more liberal than the founder and abandoning his philosophy. This undoubtedly has something to do with being socially acceptable to other elites, most of whom are liberal. The Wall Street Journal has had a consistent philosophy since its founding and was always independent. It was sad to see it folded into another company. It has already undergone changes that are not very appealing. As long as Roger Ailes is around Fox News is safe, given that he started it and continues to guide it. He is the key here. Watch Roger Ailes. If he is no longer there it does not bode well for the future.
The “liberals” cannot abide a single conservative major media outlet and will do anything they can to eliminate this company. The Obama administration tried without success to boycott Fox News and exclude them from press conferences, but even the other media thought this was going too far and the attempt failed. Howard Dean has said he wants to shut down Fox News and it is a constant obsession of left-wing activists who cannot abide even one right-leaning media outlet. At this point government action would be too obvious and heavy-handed, but not so heredity. At this point all we can do is pray for Rupert Murdoch and hope that somehow a better succession will occur.
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