A sad day for the Washington Post and Washington DC

As Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and of the Washington Post, announces the op-ed pages will shift to coverage on "freedom of markets" and "personal liberties"   ("Post owner Bezos announces shift in opinions section," Post, "Washington Post opinion editor departs as Bezos pushes to promote ‘personal liberties and free markets’," Guardian).

While I think it'll likely be "Wall Street Journal-lite"), it is a sad diminishment of the range of opinions offered by the paper.  It's not like I can read George Will or his politically leaning colleagues because of their arguments, but I never minded that they took up space on the pages.

With all the talk about disinformation and misinformation and the need for reliable sources of information, it's sad that the Post is throwing in with this dis- and mis-informatives, as an under-information or incomplete-information provider.  

It's not that you can't write about personal liberties and freedom of markets.  But you're telling an incomplete story if you avoid discussion of real discrimination, minoritarian rule, etc., as well as the need for regulation of markets to reduce the chance for overreach and economic collapse.

It's a long way from what the Graham Family thought were the strengths of Bezos digital knowledge in a future that was and is very uncertain for newspapers ("A Newspaper, and a Legacy, Reordered," New York Times).

From the Washington Post article, "The sale of The Washington Post: How the unthinkable choice became the clear path:"

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth presented her uncle, company chief executive Donald E. Graham, with a once-unthinkable choice at a lunch meeting at downtown Washington's Bombay Club late last year. The paper was facing the like­lihood of a seventh straight year of declines in revenue, with one preliminary budget estimate showing the possibility of $40 million in losses for 2013. And despite years of heavy investment in new digital offerings, there was little sign that robust profits were about to return, she reported.

That left three choices, Weymouth told Graham. The family could continue presiding over the gradual decline of the newspaper they loved. They could move more aggressively to cut the paper’s staff more deeply than ever, hoping that they could return The Post to sustained profitability by sacrificing its longtime excellence.

Or they could sell, cutting ties to one of America’s iconic news organizations after four generations of family control in the hopes that The Post could thrive again under a new, deep-pocketed, civic-minded owner.

... Several factors allowed the deal to come together with relative speed. They included a long-standing friendship between Bezos and Graham, 68, an executive steeped in traditional newspaper publishing who had become a respected elder for a newer generation of tech magnates. Bezos was among the most successful of those, and the two men had on several occasions traded insights on their businesses.

“The Post is his baby,” Weymouth said of Graham. “He was not going to give his baby to anybody who he thought would not care for it properly.”

Looks like the baby got sold to a serial killer ("Post endorsement controversy sparks staff resignations, protests ," The Hill).

Then again, significant change was predicted, it just took 11 years to see how bad it could be ("No Change? Jeff Bezos Will Turn the Washington Post Upside Down," MediaShift).  First on the list, although actually much later:

So what can we expect to change within the next five years and why? Here are some reasonable assumptions:

The editorial policies, the coverage and the content will reflect the interests and ideologies of the owner. For the U.S. government’s hometown newspaper, that’s something to really be aware of.

Television station license challenges: Fox, Sinclair

 For a few years I suggested that Fox terrestrial broadcast licenses be challenged, based on the idea that the way they run Fox cable assets are counter to the public interest, making them unworthy of the privilege of using the public airwaves ("Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary on the Murdoch media empire and Trump".).  Fox cable television programming is severely unbalanced ("Why a Fox News pundit may not have heard bad news about Trump," Washington Post).

Finally, the license in Philadelphia is being challenged ("Fox Television station license being challenged in Philadelphia, on character grounds").  I attempted a submission myself, but the docket for FCC comments is pretty unwieldly and I never finished.

Sinclair Television ("Sinclair’s recipe for TV news: Crime, homelessness, illegal drugs," Washington Post) licenses should be similarly challenged.  From the article:

Every year, local television news stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting conduct short surveys among viewers to help guide the year’s coverage. A key question in each poll, according to David Smith, the company’s executive chairman: “What are you most afraid of?”

... The answers are evident in Sinclair’s programming. Crime, homelessness, illegal drug use, failing schools and other societal ills have long been core elements of local TV news coverage. But on Sinclair’s growing nationwide roster of stations, the editorial focus reflects Smith’s conservative views and plays on its audience’s fears that America’s cities are falling apart, according to media observers, Smith associates, and current and former staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company matters. 

... Sinclair’s local network of 185 stations across the country makes it an influential player in shaping the views of millions of Americans, especially at a time when local newspapers are rapidly being gutted — or closed altogether. 

As Sinclair increasingly fills the void, it offers its viewers a perspective that aligns with Trump’s oft-stated opinion that America’s cities, especially those run by Democratic politicians, are dangerous and dysfunctional. “Sinclair stations deliver messages that appeal to older, White, suburban audiences, and they play up crime stories in a way that is disproportionate to their statistical presence,” said Anne Nelson, a journalist and author of “Shadow Network: Media, Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right.” 

All of it is fearmongering and feeds into a racialized view of cities.” Sinclair’s large network of local stations tends to cover societal problems in similar ways, experts say. A 2019 study by researchers at Stanford and Emory universities showed that a Sinclair acquisition of local stations resulted in “substantial increases in coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics” and “a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage.” 

Nelson, who has spent decades studying conservative media and political propaganda, said that local TV news reports traditionally cover local crime stories, but Sinclair’s programming does it “more than usual, and with a particular message.” She said that the lack of local papers has changed the role of local TV news. 

Sinclair’s large network of local stations tends to cover societal problems in similar ways, experts say. A 2019 study by researchers at Stanford and Emory universities showed that a Sinclair acquisition of local stations resulted in “substantial increases in coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics” and “a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage.”

-- "Local News and National Politics," American Political Science Review

Fox Television station license being challenged in Philadelphia, on character grounds

 I've argued for years that Fox television station licenses should be challenged on character and fitness grounds, because of the way the company runs Fox cable operations. 

-- "Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary on the Murdoch media empire and Trump," 2021
-- "Part 2 of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary on the Murdoch media empire and Trump," 2021

In the 1980s, RKO General lost their broadcast licenses first because a separate part of the corporation was found guilty of criminal behavior, and later because of multiple fitness failures on the part of RKO.

Now, the only license up for renewal until 2028, in Philadelphia, is being challenged by the Media and Democracy Project ("FCC allows for public comment on petition to deny Fox 29′s broadcast license," Philadelphia Inquirer).

Public comments are being accepted, and I'm working on my submission.  There isn't a final deadline date listed.

Part 2 of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary on the Murdoch media empire and Trump

As mentioned in last week's blog entry, "Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary on the Murdoch media empire and Trump," the "Four Corners" long form news program of Australian Broadcasting Corporation has done a two part program on Fox News in the US.  

The first episode broadcast a week ago Monday, the second episode this Monday.

Fox News is relevant to Australia not just because of the fact that US politics have impact world-wide, but because Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation began in Australia, and the impact of the company as a conservative news force is world-wide, but especially pronounced in Australia, the UK, and the US.

The first episode is pretty good.  

Although the reporting is not necessarily "news" to those of us in the US dealing with the issue of Fox "News" and its force in conservative politics, but discloses new details about how the turn to the hard right caused a split in the family, leading James Murdoch to leave the company altogether because he couldn't abide by the channel's place as a Republican and Trump propaganda feed and he had no ability to influence changes.

The family split also led Murdoch to sell many of its studio and non-sports cable television assets to Disney ("Disney officially owns 21st Century Fox," NPR), while still keeping the Fox News and Fox Business cable channels and the terrestrial network and television stations. (The Fox regional sports networks were sold separately to Sinclair Broadcasting, itself an avowedly conservative force.)

The second Four Corners" episode focuses on how Fox News has been all in on the "Big Lie" promoted by Trump that he won the election, which has been used by Republican state legislatures and governors across the country to pass a wide variety of voter suppression measures.

-- "Fox and the Big Lie: How the network promoted Donald Trump’s propaganda and helped destabilise democracy in America," episode two, "Four Corners," Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Murdoch newspapers in Australia have been all in on denigrating ABC and "Four Corners," allegedly based on "news value," not as a concerted campaign by the company, such as these articles from the Australian newspaper, which is roughly equivalent to the New York Times or Toronto Globe & Mail as a national organ ("The ABC’s big lie and the madness of Four Corners" and "Four Corners ‘fails’ basic reporting: Fox News"). 

Living this here in the US, the first episode seemed plenty accurate to me.  And the News Corporation articles defending Fox News seem fatuous.  From the article:

The ABC’s flagship current affairs program, Four Corners, has bizarrely claimed that the Fox News network “undermined the American democratic system” — simply by reporting Donald Trump’s public statements in the aftermath of the US election last November.

... But the 50-minute episode on Monday night was beset by unverified claims, glaring omissions of fact and a confused narrative that at times seemed to favour the censorship of news reporting. 

At times, Ferguson adopted a sneering tone toward the 74 million Americans who supported Trump, suggesting they were incapable of thinking for themselves. 

“They didn’t reach these conclusions on their own. There’s plenty of propaganda to feed their beliefs. But former Fox News insiders level blame at the powerful organisation they worked for,” Ferguson said.

The problem of course comes down to "reporting" that treats claims as equal, reports what "one side" says, without acknowledging whether or not what they say is true ("Why the Republicans' Big Lie works so well: A sociopathic party, and a damaged country," Salon, "Our democracy is under attack. Washington journalists must stop covering it like politics as usual," Washington Post).  

Fox News is a megaphone for Republicans who lie ("prevaricate") and it amplifies lies to the point where people think the lies are true ("Trumpists live in an alternate reality — but they believe in it, and that's terrifying," Salon).

Note that the first blog entry made the argument that on "fitness" grounds, Fox's television stations licenses ought to be subject to license challenges over their use of the "public's airwaves" the same way that many years ago, RKO's station licenses were similarly and successfully challenged.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary on the Murdoch media empire and Trump

According to the Guardian ("Murdoch empire strikes back at ABC’s documentary on Fox News’ championing of Trump"), the Murdoch media empire is furiously challenging the ABC documentary on the links between Murdoch and former President Trump ("Murdoch’s Fox News issues ABC with legal threat over ‘Four Corners’ Trump episode," Sydney Morning Herald).  

Certainly, we are familiar with the decline of Fox "News" and the Fox Business Channel into "Trumpmania" and conspiracy mongering.

Surprisingly, the documentary, on the ABC show "Four Corners" is available online to people outside of Australia, which is often rare, because of restrictions on broadcasting rights in other countries.  I definitely will watch it.

-- "Fox and the Big Lie: How the network promoted Donald Trump’s propaganda and helped destabilise democracy in America" (video)

In the UK, because of News Corporation newspapers hacking of personal telephones for "scoops", the company was deemed unfit to pursue full ownership of British Sky Broadcasting ("News Corp pulls out of BSkyB bid," Guardian).  Eventually, they sold their interest to the US-based Comcast Corporation.

I am not a lawyer, and am not really an advocate anymore (more a writer), but I argue on similar grounds, Fox television's terrestrial broadcast licenses ought to be able to be challenged, based on their poor stewardship of the cable television news assets and their failure to be "fair and balanced".

-- "60% of Fox News facts are really lies," Politifact, 2015
-- "Dominion Voting Systems Files $1.6 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against Fox News," NPR
-- "A Rigorous Scientific Look Into The 'Fox News Effect'," Quora
-- "Misinformation During A Pandemic," University of Chicago

In the 1960s-1990s, the conglomerate RKO owned television and radio stations.  The corporation was found guilty of illegal activity in another subsidiary, and advocates used that conviction to successfully make the case that RKO was unfit to operate the over the air television station, and its use of the public's airwaves, in Boston.  Over time, they lost more licenses on similar grounds ("RKO General Is stripped of 3 TV Licenses," Washington Post, 1980, and then all of them for a different transgression.

This is the precedent that I think should be used to begin challenging Fox's tv station licenses, which are the root of the company's wealth and power in the United States.

Fox owns 18 stations directly, branded as Fox Television, 10 stations which broadcast "My Network Television" and one independent station.

These stations are in:

• Atlanta
• Austin, Texas
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Detroit
• Houston
• Los Angeles
• Milwaukee
• Minneapolis
• New York City
• Ocala
• Orlando
• Philadephia
• Phoenix
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• Tampa
• Washington, DC

The stations in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington are the crown jewels of the network.

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Murdoch's purchase of Metromedia Broadcasting and its stations in key markets, paying billions for NFL television rights, and using both assets to create the Fox television network and brand was brilliant.

Ockham's Junkyard as a form of political reasoning

From ClubStreet Post

Ockham's Razor is a concept put forward by William of Ockham in the 1300s, that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is the most likely to be correct.  From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Definition of Occam's razor: 

a scientific and philosophical rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities.

The way Republicans and the radical right offer explanation, especially media personalities like Tucker Carlson (there was no insurrection, etc.), Sean Hannity (Trump's Big Lie that he didn't lose to Biden, etc.), Laura Ingraham (Democrats are socialists, hydroxychoroquine, etc.), Alex Jones ("crisis actors" fake they are victims of school shootings, etc.) to me is more an example of 

Ockham's Junkyard:

that the most convoluted, fabulist, insane, ridiculous, and fact-less explanation is the truth.

Disturbing research on OxyContin shows the problems of prescription drugs as a "market" and perhaps why we should have a national health system

If you consume media targeting older demographics, you are familiar with advertising for prescription drugs.

It can be fun to make fun of the names, the ads, and to be concerned about the various side effects of the drugs as outlined in the ads.

But there is no question that demand for such drugs increases as a result of the advertising.

A couple weeks ago, the New York Times published a story, "Damage From OxyContin Continues to Be Revealed," featuring the results of various research studies about OxyContin, the addictive prescription drug that is widely abused, reaping great profits for Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the company that made and marketed it.

Research results include:

• Perdue marketed the drug in states that had fewer regulatory requirements, with a finding that distribution was twice as high in the lightly regulated states concomitant with higher rates of addiction
• per capita OxyContin use was up to 250% higher in the states with lighter regulations
• 65% of the increase in overdose death rates was tied to the introduction and marketing of OxyContin
• because of the high rate addiction, when the formulation of OxyContin was changed, making it less satisfying to existing addicts, the shift to heroin as an alternative led to a skyrocketing of heroin use, a tripling of overdose deaths and a massive increase in Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C infections.

It definitely puts the whole system of pharmaceutical marketing under a scary light. And shows how the profit motive shapes the demand for particular drugs in ways that may have little to do with promoting positive health outcomes ("The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy," American Journal of Public Health 99:2 [2009]; "Propaganda that Masqueraded as Pharmaceutical Marketing," Psychology Today).

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Special addition on hydroxychoroquine and remdesivir

Obviously, we want cures for covid19, but the promotion of hydroxychoroquine has become political, pushed by financial and conservative interests as a potential victory for President Trump and as a way to push to the side the recognition of the management failures of the Trump Administration in reacting to the pandemic.

Politico reports ("Coronavirus gets a promising drug. MAGA world isn't buying it") that conservative  media remains wedded to hydroxychoroquine promotion in the face of more positive reports on remdesivir, which are promoted by more traditional scientific and medical experts.

That being said, remdesivir helps people recover more quickly, but it doesn't necessarily reduce the death rate ("Remdesivir Trial Missed a Huge Opportunity," Bloomberg).

Fortunately, it looks like there may be better drug candidates ("Old Drugs May Find a New Purpose: Fighting the Coronavirus," New York Times; "High hopes for Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford scientists," France24). But regardless it will take quite some time for a vaccine to be developed, to find drugs that may help those who become sick, etc.

But it's also pretty damning that a cure becomes more about politics and less about science. From the Politico article:

Indeed, the same segment of the right that claimed scientists and the media were deliberately downplaying hydroxychloroquine in order to hurt Trump’s standing are now the ones downplaying remdesivir. On Fox News, Laura Ingraham suggested that remdesivir, as a newer drug being produced by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, could be unsafe and expensive. Those who initially helped raise the profile of hydroxychloroquine raised doubts about the remdesivir studies.

The unexpected reaction appears to stem from the differences in how the two drugs came into the public spotlight. Hydroxychloroquine bubbled up through the MAGA grassroots — little-known investors promoted it online, got on Fox News and suddenly the president was talking about it from the White House. Remdesivir’s progress came through a government-funded trial that had the blessing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the bête noire of Trump hardliners who blame the government’s top infectious disease expert for undermining the president and causing unnecessary economic damage with his social-distancing guidelines.