ROGER AND ME. by V.I. LENIN (the *legend* of Fox News!!).
Lenin wrote a lot about having revolutionary newspapers such as the Spark (Iskra), Forward (Vperyod), and Proletarians (Proletary) appear credible. He sternly urged to have "news" (and even art criticism!) that appeared to be dry in style; it was presented as if neutral in order to gain phoney respectability (accordingly, the bolshevik contributors went really wild only in op-ed pages, or such was Lenin's vision).
Roger Ailes who runs Fox News is a career, far-right wing political manipulator. He knows media, sure, and was even involved in Broadway plays http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/ailesroger/ailesroger.htm, as well as a botched attempt to bring the scourge Rush Limbaugh to TV.
"While serving as both CNBC's president and Limbaugh's producer, Ailes went on Don Imus's radio show to promote Limbaugh's reports of a "suicide cover-up, possibly murder," in the death of White House counsel Vincent Foster. 'The guy who's been doing an excellent job for the New York Post [Christopher Ruddy]...for the first time on the Rush Limbaugh show said that...he did not believe it was suicide.... Now, I don't have any evidence.... These people are very good at hiding or destroying evidence.'"http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2004/05/12/tv/index2.html
Ailes was never a journalist, though, but merely someone bent on transforming media into a reactionary political instrument. Going back aways, he is known for inventing the original Swift Boat technique of destroying an opponent by a noisy smear http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/weekinreview/the-nation-swift-boats-and-the-lessons-of-dukakis.html, and he slipped by the Federal Elections Commission with his Willie Horton abuse of Michael Dukakis only because the legendarily ineffectual body deadlocked.
In time, Ailes began having trouble with his CNBC gig and another NBC cable network where he had a one-hour show; that's when NBC pulled the plug and went in the other direction by hatching MSNBC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes Briefly cast adrift, Ailes soon met a foreign misanthrope with a huge bankroll and no sense of honor named Rupert Murdoch: Ailes thus concocted Fox News!
Cut to 2009, and they have admitted that Fox News did "P.R." for the teabaggers! Admitted it!!! http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2378425
Just a little "public relations" work by the "news" network http://mediamatters.org/reports/200904080025 for anti-Obama Swift Boating. They also like to claim the "department" that organized Beck's rally uses a different non-newsy name somehow; thus, the *actual* news group preserves its (objectivity?). BALONEY! It's all run by Ailes and it's all called Fox News despite their caterwauling that somehow it isn't. Lenin would approve (and Orwell would recognize the stunt): when you get caught red-handed, insist that something plainly impossible is somehow nonetheless true. Ailes had explained his "fair and balanced" journalistic philosphy as to Obama, upon hiring Beck in 2009: ."I see this as the Alamo...If I just had somebody who was willing to sit on the other side of the camera until the last shot is fired [meaning Beck], we'd be fine." (And don't get me started again about prostitute extraodinaire, Chris Wallace!)
Having no sense of their risible absurdity but possessing bottomless chutzpah, Fox wants to bring up the comparison of when Nixon shut out the New York Times. Because by isolating a reputable news organization, Nixon had set himself up. Did I say reputable news organization? Ailes (a Nixon protégé!) is thus comparing his tawdry farce to none other than the Grey Lady!
A politician should never take on a news organization; it is true. But as said before, the political price to be paid for relations with Fox works like this: since in refighting the Alamo, Fox only smears and denigrates the President no matter what he does, the only cost that can be incurred would be that of legitimizing the propagandists by granting them interviews and access. Because if Fox seems like a news organization, all their non-stop derision seems to have some validity, which it doesn't. Since legitimizing Fox is thus harmful, scoffing and ignoring the scalawags is the right play for WH.
If you or people close to you think Fox is news, or kind of news, all that proves is that disciplined, well-staged political organizing works even today, just as it did for Lenin. Lenin and company put out those newspapers but he was obviously no newsman either. By the way, intellectuals in Russian have never understood why the imperial police (okhrana) put up with Lenin's crap (they could have jailed him, tailed him, whacked him); that cost the whole place 70 bloodthirsty years in the wilderness! Of course, Ailes is no revolutionary, just a bubbleheaded Nixonian pimp whose appalling life's work has consisted of arguing with mock indignation that up is down. Some, like fellow Nixon-crony Cheney (and his freak show daughter Liz!) enjoy this of course, and are eager to play their roles as willing dupes. But Obama and the rest of us can opt out: we don't have to be part of the Big Lie.
[P.S. one may also see btw Countdown from last night on this;
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#33284922]
OT. Well Done!
This is a really great post.
I once started a post on Faux and Mao's thoughts on Propaganda, but I never got past the first few sentences. The Lenin angle is much better.
Here's a blockquote from Mao I was thinking to use:
Mao was speaking of the japanese at the time, but I thought I would compare these quotes with how Faux treats the three categories. For example They have successfully, perhaps mortally, damaged Accorn, an organization that largely works to get Democratic voters to the polls. The never spare a chance to denigrate France, or Social progressives.
Allies, conservative moderates, they give good press for with 'balanced' critisicm
And of course, they created and cheer lead the Teabaggers, helping them speak with one heart and mind. Never criticizing, or worse mocking, them.
Anyway that was going to be my post.
This was much better and thanks for the research on Jabba the hut!
October 13, 2009 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks a lot, Saladin.
Very interesting discussion about Mao.
He obviously had a sophisticated notion of propaganda and the like (very informative quote, thanks!), and I just don't know what kind of practitioner he was.
Lenin I do know, and he really lived this stuff and sure as hell wrote a lot about it, hectoring others relentlessly for not following his recipe to the "T."
Anyway, good -- Mao material and your thinking sure enrich the string here! Everything you say about Fix News is fair and insightful, also.
Nice photos! And Jabba looks kinda good in comparison!
October 14, 2009 1:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
A hearty second on the "well done."
Putting aside all other critiques, condemnations, and praise Nixon aside, he sure did unleash a bunch of whackjobs on this country.
October 14, 2009 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks much, Acamus, and *how true*! I only realized upon researching for a blog that the wonderful Cheney legacy dates to the Nixon years!
October 14, 2009 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah there is an art to lying. And after you repeat the lie many many times...the people's ears begin to numb.
Then, weeks later, when some liberal brings it up, the liar just tsks tsks, shrugs and says that is old news.
It is all conditioning. I watched part of rush's interview. That is why there are severe rules for cross examination. Properly prepared a rookie attorney could break these bastards into six pieces.
Just like they would've with cheney if he had appeared at Scooter's trial. Cross would have taken weeks.
Oh well all's fair in war and propaganda.
October 14, 2009 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
All very insightful, Mr. Day!
Ears start to numb ... conditioning ... tsk, tsk.
The courtroom has rules as you say and as you have lived. The propaganda arena is, yes, more given to extemporaneity! (Stumped the spell-check with that last one BTW, ha-hah!)
October 14, 2009 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very well done. The whole propaganda-think is an interesting topic. Can be intimidating if not downright scary.
It's not a stretch to view all "Commercials" as attempts to form public opinion. When a person sees the Coca Cola logo, for instance, it brings certain thoughts or feelings... Or Toyota... or IBM... or whatever.
In Brazil they cut right to the chase. They don't call them "Commercials". They call them "Propaganda".
Pick a product and Brand it. That product can be a commodity or that product can be a country.
And the people, all of us, are all too easily lead.
October 14, 2009 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the comment! "Propaganda" (exact same word in Russian), was a fairly neutral term in USSR, consistent with your musings (and their philosophy).
The Washington Times opened in the 1980s as a product of Reverend Moon; it has been very successful political propaganda and the Republicans all read it and credit it as being accurate -- now forgetting completely who's behind it. There's Limbaugh and his twisted ilk, but nothing compares I don't believe in U.S. history to the Fox media circus in terms of political propaganda!
October 14, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Love it. rec'd
October 14, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks much! Really appreciate!
October 14, 2009 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm confused about whether FOX News is growing or receding at times. I am not impressed that they are #1, in a field with so many players. #1 can have a small percentage of an audience. I'm not even sure the network is #1 or just a few programs are #1, or whether they are lying. I do not have any disbelief if they were lying. But are they actually growing? Or is cable removing competitors to drive people to FOX? It's a little known fact MSNBC has a smaller coverage area then FOX because MSNBC is not always available with basic cable, so the same market is not available to MSNBC, whereas FOX is everywhere. There are also very few cable companies left, although cable is everywhere. So there are a select few people making the decision what stations are being provided under basic cable and what is not. Regardless, MSNBC manages to beat FOX from time to time, despite he disadvantages. It gives me hope.
There are other similarities between the Soviet government and the GOP. It was a stated goal to create a long standing majority for the GOP and, during Dubya they efffectively turned our government into a one-party system. I think it would be useful to remind people of how completely kept out the Dems were during Dubya any time the GOP even whispers that they are being left out of the process. The door has been wide open and they can go inside whenever they wish. They are refusing to participate except to criticize. Being tolerated for doing that is not the same as being kept out, and that is exactly how the GOP treated the Dems just 6 short years ago.
The whole censorship tactics and gov't agencies filming the protestors was very simlar to Soviet-style tactics. The effort made to manage the news by giving access to some agencies and not others was a Soviet practice as well. Dubya himself admitted to using propaganda and marketing to advance his agenda. We should never lose sight of this and we should be wary when Obama cotninues these tactics as well. It's un-American in the broadest sense of that term.
October 14, 2009 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're constantly spreading disinformation about the ratings, Soviet-style, BTW! Thanks for the very good comments, GregorZap!
October 14, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since I mentioned Mao I thought I mine as well go for a twentieth century totalitarian trifecta:
-Mein Kampf (from wiki) Ok, ok, I know going Nazi is too easy, its lazy.
Government bad. Market good. Democrat bad... i am sure we could all list the Reaganisms ad nauseam.
What is scary to me is that the noise machine has taken on a life of its own. The leaders of the republican party no longer have control over it (well they have nominal control of faux). With the economy continuing to decline for most of the working class and the Democratic party increasingly seen as the elitist protector of the rich we have a potential for a charismatic populist of the far right to ride that machine to power.
I don't think we will be at that point for a while, but I would like to see a much more populist Democratic party arise to coopt the working class back. Bailing out the bankers, hedge fund pirates, and everybody else that destroyed the economy, while half my friends have been laid off was not my idea of change. I confess that I share much of that anger that feeds the right-wing loonies, so maybe I am just overly sensitive to it.
October 14, 2009 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink