Inside the Fourth Reich: The Difference Between Bias & Propaganda & Why it Matters
Historical Parallels: A Discussion of two of the World’s Most Effective Propagandists - Rupert Murdoch & Adolph Hitler
December 31, 2016 / Manhattan Neighborhoods / News Analysis & Opinion / Manhattan Buzz NYC.
Keith Rupert Murdoch appears to be running one of the largest propaganda machines on the planet and the largest propaganda machine in the free world. In this report I take a look into how Billionaire Media Mogul Keith Rupert Murdoch’s organization artfully and craftily morphs and mixes news with propaganda, like the 1930's gangsters used to mix restaurant services with alcohol distribution during the Prohibition. In both cases many of each establishment's regular customers didn't / don’t realize what lurks beneath.
In prior reports on Murdoch's endeavors I’ve researched:
1) How Murdoch’s organization appears to have been using the NY Post as a propaganda machine to discredit the NYC Mayor de Blasio.
2) How the Murdoch organization has had a multiple decades-long incredible strings of luck. Where - by chance or quid pro quo - they support a candidate and then after the candidate is in office there’s a legislative change or a legislative stall or regulatory change or stall that works in Murdoch’s organization’s favor. Are these really a string of coincidences or - rather Murdochian behind-the-scenes Quid Pro Quo corruption?
3) How Murdoch organization outlets Fox News & the NY Post appeared to distort accounts by showing only some of the facts, hyping select positive and negative information and distracting the public from core issues through the use of political theater [Chelsea].
4) How Fox News coverage was far from providing Fair & Balanced coverage which appears to be a false advertisement in its logo banner. I tallied Fox News headlines during and following the July Republican and Democratic Party Conventions.
5) How Murdoch organization outlets the NY Post and Fox News appear to have promoted Trump at the expense of rivals like Republican Senator Ted Cruz and other Republican Primary contenders, as well as what appears like propagandist reporting by Fox News following the July Conventions.
6) A Case Study piece on Hannity and O’Reilly Fox 'News' talk shows - showing just a few excerpts the past few months that provide what appear to be somewhere between completely false to completely self-contradictory statements.
7) A history of a slew of examples showing how Murdoch appears to have interfered in elections – including a headline in one of his papers where he boasts as much.
8) In this report, I take a broader look at what appears to be the divisive and destructive impact Propagandist Billionaire Media Mogul Keith Rupert Murdoch is having on American political discourse and Americans' faith in their governance system.
I think it’s important to distinguish early on from what may be propaganda to what is media bias – because we are all biased. Let’s start with the dictionary definition of these terms:
Bias: 1) Systematic error introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others and 2) preconceived judgment or opinion.
Propaganda: 1) the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.
In the first instance, BIAS, one has a tendency to favor someone which may alter what they say or report. Likely all journalists have some bias, even if they didn’t have any notion one way or the other, prior to accumulating the facts of a story. Once you have the facts it’s likely to elicit an opinion of some sort on the part of the journalist. In American journalism reporters try to correct for their bias by attempting to includes at least two sides of the story in order to let the reader / viewer decide.
In the second instance, PROPAGANDA, one actively uses information, some factual and oftentimes non-factual information - to deceive and manipulate people into believing and doing what you want them to do - even though it may be harmful to their own well being.
Inside the Fourth Reich: The Difference Between Bias & Propaganda & Why it Matters
Historical Parallels: A Discussion of two of the World’s Most Effective Propagandists - Rupert Murdoch & Adolph Hitler
December 31, 2016 / Manhattan Neighborhoods / News Analysis & Opinion / Manhattan Buzz NYC. Continued.
Over the past thirty years most major news outlets, once owned by about 50 different people / companies, have been consolidated into a very big business. And some of America's largest media companies are controlled by those not born or bred in America - most notably Keith Rupert Murdoch who controls 'News' Corp and 21st Century Fox - who wields an influence that far outweights most elected officials.
Today six companies reportedly control more than 80% of what is called the mainstream media – including the four national networks and the large city daily newspapers, websites and national magazines. These companies, including Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, Wall Street Journal, NY Post and National Geographic are what I call the Billionaire & Corporate owned press.
Many American media corporations now appear more interested in profits than anything else, whereas in the past there was an Americanized notion of the Fourth Estate, the press, which was believed to - in some measure - collectively represent the voice of the American people.
Just as the two major political parties failed their constituents in the 2016 election – so did the billionaire and corporate owned media. In my mind, this is because the press is no longer owned “by the people” who live amongst the people, nor covered by people who represent the populace.
Many of the corporate owned media companies in this nation are staffed by mostly white, middle class and upper class, well-educated journalists. They are no longer representative of the nation as a whole, which has been changing ethnically, academically and economically. Education is an important characteristic to have in a journalist, but so is some connection to the people and issues upon which they report. I cannot document this at this time, but I believe there's a significant gap in how well the media is exposed to and represents the economic and ethnic diversity of the nation.
Rupert Murdoch found one unsatisfied segment of the electorate when he arrived in both Britain and America – the uneducated working class. He appears to have found that by playing on their intrinsic cultural biases, like a salesman plays a prospective buyer - that he could manipulate them to do what he wanted – and make the sale to get them to vote against their own economic interests. Thus Murdoch appears to have convinced members of the lower and uneducated classes of our society to vote in favor of his interests - those of a global propagandist and multi-media multi-billionaire.
Over the past three to six decades Murdoch appears to have developed his organization into a propaganda machine by hiring and retaining passionate, name-calling, propagandist zealots - while weeding out many of the responsible journalists. But Murdoch isn't stupid, and hence he appears to use a portfolio approach to on air and writing talent, by retaining some respectable journalists who are used to make the deceit believable. Murdoch also appears to employ the propaganda portfolio approach, by acquiring respectable media properties like the Wall Street Journal, which he appears to use to validate the reports of some of his more rabid propagandist outlets like Fox 'News' and the NY Post.
The more I become familiar with functionality of the Australian democratic system, the more I get the impression that their form of democracy has been somewhere between dead and on life support for decades. Murdoch controls over 60% of the newspapers, and a dominant share in satellite / television. Australia has few media laws on the books, and it's my guess that restrictions on the limits on foreign ownership were changed in the 1980's and 1990's - right around the time Rupert Murdoch was switching his citizenship from Australian to American - so he could build a media / propagandist empire here.
One cannot study propagandist techniques without stumbling more than a few times on the Nazis' use of it by Adolph Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. These two men were the first users of mass media propaganda, which they used to consolidate their power by deceiving the German people, in order to push their own agenda at the expense of all concerned.
It’s estimated that about 3% to 5% of the world’s population, or about 70 to 80 million people, lost their lives in WWII. This demonstrated to the world how powerful and dangerous propaganda can be to the well being of everyone. Propaganda - at it’s core - is THE BIG LIE. Three centuries ago Edmund Burke, an Irish political philosopher and British Parliamentairan, warned that "All evil needs to succeed, is for enough good men to do nothing." which is why I cannot leave Murdoch's endeavors to go unreported.
Democracies will cease to exist if large propagandist companies thrive, because the populace will be manipulated by the deceptions of only a few - and left increasingly diminished and left in the dark.
Enter Volde Murdoch and the National Hor Cruxes
Murdoch appears to have a near monopoly share of voice in Australia, a dominant share of voice in Britain, and an increasing large share of voice in America and other parts of Europe. As he tightens his grip of the public discourse, he occasionally repeats what appear to be his deceptive or dishonest claims regarding his interest in the diversity in media. Murdoch appears to pick Australian Prime Ministers with his propaganda factories in Australia, and for most of the past three decades he’s had a strong - if not overwhelmingly impact on British elections - followed by cozy relations with the sitting British Prime Ministers, and a reportedly heavy influence on select public policies ... apparently public policies of his choice.
In America there have been multiple significant instances, where Murdoch's media outlets appear to have misinformed the American electorate about candidates and public policy issues. In the Bush election of 2000 Fox 'News' made a pre-emptive proclamation of the Bush victory, and in the presidential election of 2016, Fox 'News' reported a false rumor only days before the election, after months-long of incessant attacks on Clinton regarding her emails.
During the political conventions of 2016 I decided to evaluate how the Murdoch propaganda factory works. The following is some of what I found, and you can click here to view our entire section dedicated to the Murdoch propaganda-works.
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