“News International tried for two years to characterize the Guardian’s pursuit of the story as the unhealthy obsession of a commercial rival with a political agenda,” Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz wrote in an e-mail, “but now that the scandal has touched just about every corner of British public life it’s a duck that plainly won’t fly.”
“The radicals at the Guardian have clearly salivated to ruin Old Man Rupert,” said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group based in Alexandria. The American media, he said, have joined in: “It’s blatantly obvious that this pile-on . . . is all about Murdoch and his perceived noxious effect on American politics and media.”
Graham singles out NPR, which has received funding from “Murdoch-hating” billionaire financier George Soros, as having “a special financial interest in going after Murdoch’s media properties.”
“We’re making decisions about the coverage of the News Corp. story, as we do with all stories, based on its importance and news value,” said Dana Davis Rehm, NPR’s head of communications. “This is very big news with global impact, and we’re really proud of our coverage.”
The non-Murdoch media’s larger goal, Graham said, is “to rid America of the Fox News Channel,” which has provided a prominent platform for conservatives.
It’s certainly clear that Fox has covered Murdoch’s troubles differently than its cable rivals, MSNBC and CNN. Over a 10-day period ending Thursday, Fox News devoted 37 segments to the hacking story, according to Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group that has long been critical of Fox and Murdoch. This was fewer than half the number of stories aired by MSNBC (85), and fewer than a third as many as CNN (124).
Fox News has had two awkward moments in regard to the story. The first last week was during a segment of its media-criticism program, “Fox News Watch,” in which panelists said they intended to avoid discussing the subject (“I’m not touching it,” panelist Cal Thomas said in a comment caught by cameras during a break).
The other occurred Friday, when “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy and a guest, public-relations executive Robert Dilenschneider, defended News Corp. and agreed that the media had devoted too much attention to the story. Dilenschneider went on to denounce hacking, but lumped News Corp. among its corporate victims rather than citing the organization as a perpetrator. (Fox News representatives didn’t respond to messages requesting comment.)
Speaking generally, Joe Foote, dean of the University of Oklahoma’s journalism program, notes that there is a long history of news organizations “shielding” their corporate parents from embarrassing episodes. “Just because this exceptionally high-profile story demands that news outlets owned by a corporate parent perform well,” Foote said, “it doesn’t mean that the media can be expected always to report objectively on their own organizations.”
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