The Old Fox Fakes the News _ Case Study: How Rupert Murdoch Manipulates Public Perception
For the Second Time in Two Weeks, Murdoch's Mendacious Media Appear to Hype a Low Level Incident, to Incite Public Opinion Against the Mayor
July 23, 2019 / NYC Neighborhoods / NYC Politics / New Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.
Billionaire Rupert Murdoch must still consider Mayor de Blasio as a viable contender for the Democratic nomination for president, or his propagandistic news outlets - the NY Post & Fox News - wouldn't be so stridently attempting to stir up public emotion and opinion against the Mayor, using low-level incidents to stir unrest.
Murdoch Seems to Hype, Inflame & Amplify 'News' Incidents to Attack the Mayor
Little more than a week ago, Murdoch's NY Post hyped and seemed to blame the power outage in West Midtown on the Mayor because the Mayor was out of town that weekend. The outage lasted a bit more than 24 hours and without any major incident. NYC had three power outages during the Bloomberg Administration and I don't recall Murdoch's NY Post calling for his fellow billionaire to be fired. See report below.
This week Murdoch's Fox 'News', with what seemed an assist from ABC 'News' [in which Murdoch became the largest shareholder this year], hyped what appeared to be a disrespectful, but essentially a low-level neighborhood policing incident - into a highly sensationalist attack on the Mayor.
Note that this report is NOT about the incident itself - which as stated appeared disrespectful - but rather about Murdoch's HYPING of a harmless neighborhood policing incident [nobody was hurt and the arrest was made without further incident] on the Fox 'News' Network, FOR THE ENTIRE NATION TO SEE - seemingly in order to manage the America's public perception of Mayor Bill de Blasio, in what appears a pre-emptive attack on the Mayor before his candidacy for president gains traction.
Hyping an Incident Out of Proportion - The Facts
Let's start with the incident itself. I first found the story on Murdoch's Fox ' News'. I then found it in reports by ABC [where Murdoch became the largest shareholder this year], and the NY Daily News which is controlled by the Tribune Company. Like a lot of ill-managed corporate 'news' outlets these days, oftentimes you'll find outlets blindly following the petty narratives put out by Murdoch 'news' outlets, which is in part how Murdoch controls how people in this city and in the nation view events.
There were two incidents: one in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn and one in Harlem. ABC reported that the Brownsville incident, where a couple of police were doused with a bucket of water as the temperatures soared to nearly 100 degrees, as "... officers deliberately cooling down with residents ...".
The second incident was in Harlem, where a police officer was making an arrest and was doused with water and had a plastic pail thrown at him. The NY Daily News report also includes video depicting a woman - not dressed in a police uniform - standing near an NYPD vehicle being doused with water. If one doesn't scrutinize this portion of the video, it gives the impression that the person they are dousing is an NYPD officer - which they are not.
According to the ABC report, the Brownsville incident appears to be much ado about nothing [see above quote], but that quote may possibly provide context for the Harlem incident, where the dousing appeared not welcome and the plastic pail being thrown could be interpreted as assaulting an officer, or attempting to interfere in the arrest.
The Mayor said as much when queried about it. But as noted when I began this report - this is not about the incident itself - it's about how Murdoch's deceitful media outlet appeared to hype and distort it way out of context in order to use it to manipulate people / stir unrest / channel anger at the Mayor for what appears to be billionaire Rupert Murdoch's political and propaganda for profit agenda.
Stop & Think for a Minute - Real News vs Fake News Like This
Nobody was injured, and there wasn't any direct interference with the arrest which was being made in a local community. The incident was managed by neighborhood police, but caught on cell phone video, and picked up by who ... one of Murdoch's mendacious media outlets.
Wouldn't it seem that with all the real crimes like murders, burglaries, rapes and other crimes going on in the U.S., that the Fox Network 'News', ABC 'News' and the NY Daily 'News' might have something more important to cover with their reporting teams?
Or is this what we get from those who have been honored with FCC television licenses? Regurgitated neighborhood videos, shown largely out of context, that we can find online ourselves?
Why does Murdoch's news outlets have FCC licenses at all? Shouldn't these broadcast licenses be awarded to someone else, if this is how people like Murdoch, who currently control them, are using the public airwaves?
I think it's time community groups start challenging Murdoch's Fox Fake News misuse of their FCC TV broadcast licenses - click the link above to view a report series we have done about Murdoch's misuse of the mass media he controls. Use this information to file a brief challenging Fox News FCC license in your community ... and I'm pretty sure if you monitor Murdoch's TV news outlets locally, you'll find abuses of the truth that will lend added support to your case.
- CLICK here to read the rest of our report on how America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani seemed to betray the public with the help of Murdoch's Fox Fake News & the NY Post propaganda & the WSJ.
The Old Fox Fakes the News _ Case Study: How Rupert Murdoch Manipulates Public Perception
For the Second Time in Two Weeks, Murdoch's Mendacious Media Appear to Hype a Low Level Incident, to Incite Public Opinion Against the Mayor
July 23, 2019 / NYC Neighborhoods / NYC Politics / New Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.
Continued.
The Police Benevolent Association Weighs in
The Police Benevolent Association, which is headed by Patrick Lynch, said that this was,
"... the result of the torrent of bad policies and anti-police rhetoric that has been streaming out of City Hall for years."
Again, it is necessary to put this in context.
According to Wikipedia, in 2007 Lynch was quoted as saying that the Police Benevolent Association,
"could never support former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for any elected office."
That same Wikipedia report also states that Lynch,
"... was a huge critic of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg."
Murdoch Fox 'News' uses Rudy Giuliani Like an Attack Dog
Rupert Murdoch's mendacious media outlets seem to never let the facts - or lack thereof - get in the way of them telling the public what Murdoch wants the public to believe, which oftentimes seems what will best serve Murdoch's business interests - NOT the public good.
Thus Murdoch marshalled former Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the attack pundit. Murdoch befriended Giuliani with media endorsements and / or paid gigs beginning in 1989, when Murdoch's NY Post first endorsed Giuliani who was the Republican NYC mayoral candidate. During that mayoral campaign, Roger Ailes - who went on to become the Chairman and CEO of Murdoch's Fox News - was Rudy's campaign manager [Daily Beast report dated 7.21.11].
The Murdoch mendacious media never attacked Rudy Giuliani on anything during the eight years he was Mayor. Possibly because Giuliani - like Trump - treated Murdoch like royalty and used his mayoral powers to reward Murdoch's interests aka enrich him [and Murdoch appeared to return the favors - quid pro quo?] which you will see below. And when public preferences are given to the few like this, rest assured that over time it erodes the interests of the general public, which are our interests.
Thomas Jefferson said that,
"People who believe they can be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never will be."
So people can ignore these facts, and they can ignore examining who's feeding them the [dis]information they use to evaluate pols and policies when deciding their votes, but over time they and their progeny will pay dearly. Staying informed means that sometimes you have to put on your adult cap, and listen to some of the facts that you really don't want to hear - similar to waking up to a stock tip gone bad, a spouse that's reportedly cheating, or that your company's business model is headed for extinction. In all of these cases, it's better to look the truth squarely in the eyes, and to recalculate - and if necessary - readjust your plans.
Rupert & Rudy - A Marriage Full of Quid Pro Quo Profiting?
According to the Daily Beast report mentioned above [the facts of which I have also seen elsewhere], in 1995 Donna Hanover [who was Rudy Giuliani's wife at that time], was hired by Murdoch's Fox News as a reporter for an estimated three times what she'd last made. Corruption? Maybe, but it gets worse.
In 1996 Murdoch was in a battle to get his newly launched Fox News channel carried on the Time Warner cable system in NYC. Time Warner told Murdoch they didn't have any new channel openings - as Time Warner had 77 channels, all of which were taken, and 30 other content providers were already in line.
Reporter Wayne Barrett, who wrote the July 21, 2011 Daily Beast story, tells us that Murdoch's people met with the Giuliani Administration a couple dozen times in the course of two weeks. Barrett goes on to note that Giuliani then offerred Murdoch's Fox News one of NYC's TV channel slots, which a judge subsequently ruled was illegal [favoritism].
Not to be deterred, Giuliani, who'd been endorsed by Murdoch's NY Post twice, persisted in trying to help the billionaire media mogul. Rudy Giuliani had senatorial and presidential ambitions in the 1990's, and likely saw the value of currying favor with the billionaire propagandist. At the time Rupert Murdoch controlled one of the nation's largest newspapers [NY Post - and now also controls the Wall Street Journal, Barron's & MarketWatch], one of the nation's largest TV stations groups [Fox TV and now controls the Fox Network], and an emerging cable news channel [Fox Cable News and now controls a multitude of other cable channels].
Giuliani reportedly started making what seemed threatening statements and taking actions that hinted at threatening or at least complicating the NYC cable license renewal with Time Warner, which was only a few short years away [1998]. So Time Warner caved into the pressure levied by Murdoch's puppet / buddy pol [Rudy Giuliani], and gave Rupert Murdoch a channel on their NYC cable system.
According to a July 2011 Business Insider report, Giuliani also gave Murdoch a $20 million tax break on his Midtown Manhattan offices during Giuliani's first term. That same report also said that generous tax incentives were under consideration for Murdoch's NY Post printing plant during Giuliani's second term. It seems that Murdoch's use of his media outlets as propaganda machines, during the Giuliani Mayoralty, greatly enhanced Giuliani's electability and the profits of Murdoch's business interests.
Murdoch Values - The Callous O.J. Simpson Book "If I Did It"
One of the many media entities controlled by Rupert Murdoch is Harper Collins Publishing.
Rupert Murdoch and the values of the macabre? In 2006 Murdoch's media scrapped a Fox News interview with O.J. Simpson and a Harper Collins book entitled "If I Did It" by O.J. Simpson due to public outcry.
According to a November 21, 2006 report in The Guardian the book and Fox News show about the book, were cancelled due to the negative publicity surrounding the amazing insensitivity of the broadcast and book publication.
The Guardian states,
"...The victims' families were furious that Simpson was to get more publicity. "He destroyed my son and took from my family Ron's future and life. And for that I'll hate him always and find him despicable," Fred Goldman told ABC's Good Morning America programme. Nicole Brown Simpson's sister, Denise Brown, accused the publishers of "promoting the wrongdoing of criminals" and commercialising abuse."
Murdoch Values - Lying to get Puppet Pols into Office?
The woman spearheading the project, Judith Regan, was fired by Newscorp in 2006. Regan was also allegedly having an affair Bernard Kerik, who was the Police Commissioner during the Giuliani Mayoralty. According to a January 25, 2008 report by Reuters, there was a lawsuit filed by Regan in November of 2007 against Newscorp regarding her 2006 termination in which she claims,
" ... that a senior executive at News Corp encouraged Regan to lie to government investigators about her relationship with Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner. It said the company feared damaging information about Kerik could come back to haunt his mentor, former New York Mayor Giuliani, who is now a Republican U.S. presidential candidate..."
Murdoch the mendacious? Will he do anything to put his puppets in office? Will he do anything to keep those who refuse to be his puppets from getting into office?
Murdoch Values - Distorting the News to Discredit a Pol who Won't Become the Propagandist's Puppet?
Why did a Low Level Neighborhood Policing Incident, Become the Front Page Story, of one of America's Largest TV Networks?
This sort of propaganda pay to play appears to be a recurring theme in Rupert Murdoch's dishonest life. He seems to use his media outlets and pundits to promote the pols from whom he seeks favors, and uses them to punish those who won't bend to his will.
It seems that Mayor Bill de Blasio is not one of those who will bend to Murdoch's will, which is why the Mayor will likely be under repeated mass media attacks by the Murdoch mendacity machine the rest of his political career.
Hence this is why a neighborhood policing incident, involving water splashes that resulted in no physical harm, has become a top national report by a Murdoch propaganda pol turned pundit [Rudy Giuliani] on a Murdoch propaganda machine outlet [Fox News].
I can all but guarantee that you'll see many more of these hyped up, distorted and deceitful reports from a multitude of Murdoch media outlets going forward - until Mayor de Blasio is out of the running for presidency - or until after de Blasio retires from the presidency in 2028.
Murdoch will mix it up, by using his vast array of different media outlets, to provide a continous stream of distorted reports, seeming to come from different sources [see prior report from a week ago in which Murdoch's NY Post blamed the Mayor for the power outage in Midtown, while this week it's Murdoch's Fox News that blames the water splashing on cops on the Mayor]. The Murdoch media strategy seems to be, to enable the public to view the multitude of very distorted 'news' accounts, at various times, by different 'news' outlets, to give the public the impression that the Mayor is wrong on so many different counts. Murdoch seems to fictionalize facts to do this.
I surmise that Murdoch's thinking is that the public will develop a negative attitude toward the Mayor [or any non-Murdoch pol] because they're receiving so many of these distorted attack narratives, based on false attributions, from so many different 'news' outlets, at so many different times. How could they be so wrong? Even though when I query these voters, they cannot marshall any facts to support their claims about how the Mayor has failed them.
But the reality is that these 'news' accounts are really the continuous whining of the angry, miserly, lonely, old billionaire who controls them all. And Murdoch is also very good at cajoling, bullying and co-opting many of the other lame-brained corporate media organizations, who oftentimes repeat the narratives that his organization creates and promotes.
Murdoch Media - Creating the News - NOT Reporting it
So in summary, it seems the Brownsville incident may have been part of the NYPD neighborhood rapport [per ABC], while the Harlem incident seemed disrespectful, but with no physical harm done.
That this became a national story on Fox Fake News and ABC 'News' is not reflective of the newsworthiness of the incident, nor of the Mayor's nor NYPD's performance, but rather of the purposeful perception management of a selfish billionaire. Rupert Murdoch seems to pursue his own for profit propaganda agenda, by discrediting pols like the Mayor who won't bend to his will, in order to enable the election of those pols who will continue enabling him, to enrich and empower his organization by plundering the public domain.
One has to wonder whether Rupert Murdoch thinks he's an Egyptian Pharoah who can take all his money and power with him into the next life. I conjecture he's gonna need help after he leaves us, based on what he's done in this life. But I'm certain that all of that money and power are not going with him - just like all of those treasures that were to accompany the pharoahs - never left this world.
So while Murdoch may not yet realize it - he is really squandering the time he has left on the planet - on something that is totally irrelevant to his future.
And no matter how much money and power Murdoch accumulates, by now he should realize that it's never going to fill the void created in his life when his father Keith Murdoch Sr. died in 1952. At that time Keith Rupert Murdoch Jr. was just 21 years old.
In the 1950's psychology and psychiatry were emerging fields, and the science of them was still in question - kind of like climate change today. So it's likely Murdoch never received the proper psychological or psychiatric care that today might help someone like him through such a huge psychological trauma, which may have been exacerbated by complications with the estate transition. Young Rupert's psychological trauma at such an early age, may explain in part why he's become the seemingly angry, callous, insatiably greedy and power hungry man that he is today.
Citizen Kane. Citizen Murdoch. Rosebud.
Copyright - All Rights Reserved. Please give proper attribution.
Gotham Buzz Voluntary Subscriptions
We work very hard to help keep you informed by providing you with independent news coverage, as well as 
information about events in the arts, culture and business in the borough.
You can help us continue to provide you with independent, first-person, fact-based, contextural reporting by purchasing an annual subscription. As it's voluntary, there are a variety of price options, one of which should fit within your budget.
Thanks for your encouragement & support.
NYC Boroughs - New York City
NYC Neighborhoods - New York City Related Info
Click this link for promotions, discounts and coupons in New York City.
Click here to go to the NYC Arts & Culture section of this site.
Click these links for promotions by advertisers in Manhattan.
Click this link to go to the NYC Neighborhoods section.
Site Search Tips. 1) For best results, when typing in more than one word, use quotation marks - eg "Midtown Neighborhood". 2) Also try either singular or plural words when searching for a specific item such as "gym" or "gyms".
$element(bwcore,insert_search,N)$
Click this link to the Gotham Buzz front page.
Click the log in link below to create an ID and post an opinion.
Or send this story to a friend by filling in the appropriate box below.
NYC Related Links
Click for NYC Restaurants NYC.
Click for NYC Shopping NYC.
Click for Things To Do NYC - Holidays in NYC.
Click for NYC Neighborhoods NYC.
