parent company

When your parent company is the largest media corporation in the world and in the middle of one of the hugest corporate scandals in history, then blaming the media probably isn't a good idea, but that's exactly what happened on Fox yesterday.

Bob Dilenschneider of the Dilenschneider Group was on Fox and Friends, trying to defend News Corp and shift blame to the media in general. Here's what he had to say:

Why are so many people piling on at this point? We know it’s a hacking scandal. Shouldn’t we get beyond it and really deal with the issue of hacking? Citicorp has been hacked into. Bank of America has been hacked into. American Express has been hacked into. Insurance companies have been hacked into. . . . So we have to figure out a way to deal with this hacking problem. That’s what we have to do.

The problem with Dilenschneider's statement is that he fails to realize that in this case, News Corp isn't the victim, but rather the perpetrated. Want to "deal with this hacking problem"? Well one good start is by arresting the very people he's defending, since they are the ones contributing to the problem now.

It sounds like Fox is having a real hard time finding defenders, so they went out and hired the window licker from the short bus to make a statement that makes News Corp look even worse. When it's getting to that point, the future of News Corp looks really bleak.

Maybe he shouldn’t have spent so much trying to gobble up our media then:

Murdoch, who bought The Wall Street Journal and its parent company Dow Jones & Co in 2007, said online advertising, which most U.S. publishers hope will offset ad revenue declines at their print divisions, will not cover their costs.

"People reading news for free on the Web, that's got to change," said Murdoch speaking at The Cable Show, an annual cable television industry event, in Washington, D.C.

Murdoch pointed to the Journal's main rival in the United States, The New York Times, as an example. The Times has one of the most popular U.S. newspaper websites, but still cannot cover its costs with online ads, he said.

Could these newspapers charge a fee that would entice people to subscribe, then still be flooded with online ads? I highly doubt it. Instead you would see the intricate world of interlinking grow by leaps in bounds. That means blog X does subscribe, so they quote out a major part of the article. Then everyone links to that blog, or to another blog that eventually links back up. The same thing already happens with pay sites like Roll Call. We all know what is reported in there, since everyone shares the info.

What Murdoch’s advice sounds like is another nail in the coffin of the dying mainstream media.

What is truly amazing on this entire Dubai ports deal is the fact that some
of the people defending the deal are the same people who have painted the entire
Arab/Muslim world as being terrorists. If we are talking about torture, wire
tapping or racial profiling then it is fine to question all of them. When we are
talking about our vital ports then we should trust them.

For those who don't believe Dubai is port of the more hardline Arab world,
Think
Progress has a little more proof to show that they are:

The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political
storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab
boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Read the entire post
here.

True there is also the fact that Dubai is trying to quiet or media from
talking about this issue. For those unfamiliar with what I am talking about,
well it seems Dubai is trying to get CNN's Lou Dobbs to totally drop the
subject. You can view a video clip of that over at
Crooks and Liars.

As for the people trying to defend the deal by saying "they won't be in
charge of security", I have something else for you to consider. No they won't be
in charge of security or unload/loading ships. What they will be privy too is
weaknesses in our ports (and there are a lot). It just takes one "company man"
to report back to their superiors about a security risk. They could do it just
trying to highlight a problem that needs fixed. Now if the person who hears the
complaint has ties to al Qaeda then we have a problem.