It's Time to break up the Media

[Richie]

Obviously my direct experience is of the UK but I am aware of the situation in the USA - there are great alternative, non-mainstream sources there and I have friends there who are driven up the wall by the constant propoganda in the corporate stuff. I think the UK is better in terms of the quality of some of the mainstream media (and you have commented on this I seem to remember, possibly in a Left of Larry bulletin?) but still most people appear to be addicted to the worst of it. I'm delighted to hear that the situation isn't so bad elsewhere, however, and completely agree that promotion of alternative media is essential.

Anyway, to conclude, it seems we all agree that hitting Fox News in the USA would be a good first move. What's the best way of getting the word out? Could we put out a petition calling on Amnesty International and all other groups concerned about the current state of the world (probably most of the bodies here: http://hometown.aol.co.uk/rericswan/allies.html) to ask all their readers and members to boycott Fox until Murdoch pays his taxes like everyone else and lets News Hounds (for example) have editorial control for a week?

Even if he doesn't concede, if we get enough people interested then some of the rest of tha mainstream media might take an interest and help us publicise it. What is Fox News' main rival?

In America most of the mainstream media is terrible. Fox is definitely the worst. Even a lot of the alternative media has been infiltrated (by people like David Corn).

I agree that FOX News would be a good first move. We would need more groups than Amnesty International though. A lot of Fox News's regular viewers don't give a shit about Amnesty International. They also believe that 90% of the media has a left-wing bias. (They think that the media is trying to make the situation in Iraq look worse than it really is just to defame Bush. These people are idiots.) It would help if some conservatives came out against Fox.

I think if we could get someone else to have editorial control, Media Monitors would probably be better than Newshounds.

Fox News' main rival is CNN.

[Ry]

You know Murdoch owns a third of the written press in the UK.

[Eric-the-Read]

[quote="Richie"]In America most of the mainstream media is terrible. [url=http://davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr32.html]Fox is definitely the worst.[/url] Even a lot of the alternative media has been infiltrated (by people like David Corn).

I agree that FOX News would be a good first move. We would need more groups than Amnesty International though. A lot of Fox News's regular viewers don't give a shit about Amnesty International. They also believe that 90% of the media has a left-wing bias. (They think that the media is trying to make the situation in Iraq look worse than it really is just to defame Bush. These people are idiots.) It would help if some conservatives came out against Fox.

I think if we could get someone else to have editorial control, [url=http://world.mediamonitors.net/]Media Monitors[/url] would probably be better than Newshounds.

Fox News' main rival is CNN.[/quote]

OK, have added Media Monitors to my "allies" list - thanks. I presume you recommend them because they are unaffiliated with any political group so would have broad credibility?

I mentioned Amnesty only because, starting with the letter 'A', they would come pretty near the top of what I hope would be a very long list of potential participants (people who broadly share our view that Fox News is malign)!

What do we do first, do you think? Construct a list of likely interested parties and then jointly write to them? (Chomsky the first? John Pilger, Michael Moore...)

How about the following sequence of events?

(1) Compile the above-mentioned list.

(2) Contact all the individuals and bodies on the list asking them to give their support to a boycott of Fox News until it (Murdoch) agrees to come clean about tax-dodging (cease transfer pricing etc. and pay what should have been paid) and hand over editorial control of Fox News to Media Monitors for a week. (We need to decide exactly what demands we would make.)

(3) Perhaps get these people and institutions to write an open letter to the major media outlets (other than Murdoch's) saying exactly that and/or get them to put their names at the start of an online petition calling for the boycott.

Ideas, anyone?

By the way, internecine, I'm not clear what the major Murdoch media outlet is in Australia. Ideally we'd want to hit him in the UK (The Sun "news"paper), the USA (Fox News) and in Australia (?).

P.S. Please excuse my misspelling of propaganda in an earlier posting!

[Eric-the-Read]

You know Murdoch owns a third of the written press in the UK.

Yes! He has a stranglehold on the national culture. I suppose it's important to put that figure here so that anyone reading this forum will pick up on how powerful he is. I think at one point in the 1990s he had more than 40% of the UK press by circulation. For good measure I should re-post this link: http://www.hometown.aol.co.uk/rericswan/murdoch.html

[Richie]

OK, have added Media Monitors to my "allies" list - thanks. I presume you recommend them because they are unaffiliated with any political group so would have broad credibility?

I mentioned Amnesty only because, starting with the letter 'A', they would come pretty near the top of what I hope would be a very long list of potential participants (people who broadly share our view that Fox News is malign)!

What do we do first, do you think? Construct a list of likely interested parties and then jointly write to them? (Chomsky the first? John Pilger, Michael Moore...)

How about the following sequence of events?

(1) Compile the above-mentioned list.

(2) Contact all the individuals and bodies on the list asking them to give their support to a boycott of Fox News until it (Murdoch) agrees to come clean about tax-dodging (cease transfer pricing etc. and pay what should have been paid) and hand over editorial control of Fox News to Media Monitors for a week. (We need to decide exactly what demands we would make.)

(3) Perhaps get these people and institutions to write an open letter to the major media outlets (other than Murdoch's) saying exactly that and/or get them to put their names at the start of an online petition calling for the boycott.

Ideas, anyone?

By the way, internecine, I'm not clear what the major Murdoch media outlet is in Australia. Ideally we'd want to hit him in the UK (The Sun "news"paper), the USA (Fox News) and in Australia (?).

P.S. Please excuse my misspelling of propaganda in an earlier posting!

I recommended Media Monitors over Newshounds because they are more of an actual news site. And they have advantages over other groups because they are against the Republicrats, but they aren't too radical. There might be better sites out there to do the job, I just can't think of any.

I think some of the most important groups to contact would be Veterans' groups like "Veterans Against The Iraq War". Also ex-military leaders against the war would also be effective because so many of Fox's viewers have so much stupid respect for the military.

I also think that if we were to do this, it would help a lot if we had a website or something like that where people could look up to see why Fox is bad and what our demands would be.

We can also do other different actions at the same time as doing this. My ideas would be to: make and promote more alternative media. (as long as it's independent from George Soros.) Also make an organization which talks about rational solutions to political issues and makes recommendations for positive direct action.

I just thought of something. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. owns myspace. He will still make a lot of money through that even if we boycott Fox.

[Ry]

I have an easy first move. Let's make a Boycott Fox News campaign.

Lets make a animated gif where it says Just say no to Fox or Boycott Fox or something like that and on the flip side Anti-neocons.com or whatever alternative news you like.

Fox Jews is definately the worst news source in the US.

[Eric-the-Read]

I recommended Media Monitors over Newshounds because they are more of an actual news site. And they have advantages over other groups because they are against the Republicrats, but they aren't too radical. There might be better sites out there to do the job, I just can't think of any.

I think some of the most important groups to contact would be Veterans' groups like "Veterans Against The Iraq War". Also ex-military leaders against the war would also be effective because so many of Fox's viewers have so much stupid respect for the military.

I also think that if we were to do this, it would help a lot if we had a website or something like that where people could look up to see why Fox is bad and what our demands would be.

We can also do other different actions at the same time as doing this. My ideas would be to: make and promote more alternative media. (as long as it's independent from George Soros.) Also make an organization which talks about rational solutions to political issues and makes recommendations for positive direct action.

I just thought of something. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. owns myspace. He will still make a lot of money through that even if we boycott Fox.

Thanks, Ry and Richie

That's a very good idea, starting a website and getting the veterans involved, and Ry, your idea has the merit of great simplicity. I use myspace too, and see nothing wrong with using it to disseminate anti-M information. If he stops me doing it then this becomes news which we can use!

Also, we cannot realistically expect everyone to boycott every Murdoch outlet. Just getting them to boycott Fox News (yes, enjoyed the pun, Ry, but, as you know, it's not a race issue, it's a particular brand of Zionism that's the problem - we need to be explicit about this!) in the USA and The Sun newspaper in the UK. What in Australia?

Why don't we draft a statement listing a couple of major charges against Murdoch, approach the veterans first to get a few of them to endorse it, then start to disseminate the gif images you suggest which will link to a new wesbite? I'm wary of starting a new organisation in name as we really want to act as "an umbrella movement", bringing numerous groups and individuals on-side. We must also be careful not to associate with any one particular political party. We are democrats in the true meaning of the word, fighting the plutocrats.

(By the way, in my novel the movement I suggest is called "The International Hope-ist Movement" (as it's anti-fearmongering and so truly anti-terror in the most effective way): http://www.hometown.aol.co.uk/rericswan/hope-ism.html
The movement's first step is to knock out Murdoch, the next step is tackling a big oil company. If you think this is viable, then I would suggest Exxon Mobil, but this is for later.)

Please note that I probably won't be able to correspond for the next few days as I'm travelling a few hundred miles down south from Edinburgh in central Scotland (where I live) to Canterbury in SE England, to give a talk at a university there on my ideas. I'll pick the brains of the audience and hope to come back with some further ideas. I could draft the UK version of the statement, with the help of other UK anti-neocons out there, but I really think we ought to get some Aussies on board too. The more countries, the better, to demonstrate Murdoch's reach.

[Ricky]

When I was in NEW YORK at the RNC protest the entire crowd was chanting Fox News Sucks they could not cover any of the protest because you would hear that. But CPSAN covered it and I taped it. I think we can get people to at least boycott Fox News on TV.

[Eric-the-Read]

<a href="http://hometown.aol.co.uk/rericswan/"><img src="http://hometown.aol.co.uk/Computerager/logosml.jpg" width="222" height="134" border="2" alt="Stop your murderous lies, Murdoch, and pay your tax, or get your hands off our press!"></a>

If the above doesn't work, you can copy it and paste it elsewhere or view it here: http://hometown.aol.co.uk/Computerager/logo.html

[internecine]

another group to team up with could be FAIR.