Fox News Threatened?
by Wes Vernon
 A Saudi prince has become the fourth largest stockholder in NewsCorp, the
Rupert Murdoch media empire that includes FoxNews Channel which is friendly
to the conservative point of view.
Billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Tatal, the world's fifth richest man
(as listed by Forbes magazine) has bought 5.46% of the voting shares of the
worldwide conglomerate. Much of the business media (Wall Street Journal,
Bloomberg, et al) portray this as an act of the prince's friendship with
Murdoch, and an effort to help the media mogul fight off what is seen as a
hostile takeover attempt by John Malone's Liberty Media, which has quietly
acquired 18%. That is seond only to Murdoch's 30% share. Fidelity Management
and Research comes in third at 5.8%.
One should not underestimate the clout that goes with the Saudi fourth
place interest, conservative activist Bill Murray warns. "People don't
understand that in big multi-lateral international corporations.even owning
3 or 4 percent is a huge stake which normally gives you a seat on the board
of the corporation," he told me in an interview.
He is surely right. During most of my years with CBS, there was never any
doubt that the late legendary William Paley was the "big boss." And his
stake in what was then the nation's largest media company was a mere 8
percent. Nonetheless he was the largest shareholder. In NewsCorp, the Saudi interest
is considerable at nearly five and a half percent.
Media watchers note that the Murdoch/bin Tatal deal may do more than merely
strengthen Murdoch's defenses against Malone. NewsCorp owns not only FoxNews
(whose hands-on boss is Roger Ailes, a solid conservative), but also the New
York Post and Boston Herald (two of the very few conservative daily
newspapers in the country) and the Weekly Standard--a ten-year old
conservative magazine that competes with such long-established right-leaning
legends as Human Events and National Review.
Murray points out that when interests owned by or otherwise beholden to
Middle Eastern governments "such as Saudi Arabia" became the biggest
advertisers on CNN International News (whose on-air product differs from
that of the CNN cable channel seen here in the United States), "their news
reporting slanted against Israel to the point of being anti-Semitic, and
they began to strongly favor the Islamic world," not an insignificant matter
post 9/11.
Murray, Chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, frequently travels
overseas, and in order to get cheap airline tickets, he overnights in places
such as Warsaw, Frankfurt, and Madrid, and watches CNN International News in
hotel rooms.
Its current and largest advertisers include Orascom Telecom, Qatar Airways,
Lebanon Tourism, Emirates Airlines, Kuwait Fund, OPEC, Qatar Foundation,
Saudi Airlines, to name a few that he says are typical.
The bias on the overseas CNN channel was so over the top that the Israelis
threatened to pull the plug on CNN in Israel, at which point the propaganda
became more subtle.
But CNN International is "so radically pro-Arab, I honestly believe it is
reflected in their advertising base which is primarily Islamic money," Murray says. Thus the radical Islamist line (not to be confused with moderate Muslims) virtually blankets Europe. Could that same thing happen here in the United
States?
The bin Tatal involvement with the company that owns Fox, the N.Y. Post and
the Standard is even more troubling. The Religious Freedom Coalition notes the
Saudi prince also owns an Arabic media company, Rotana. That entity operates "several TV stations in the Middle East," as well as "a huge library of
Arabic movies and music." These propaganda outlets "contain vicious
anti-Semitism and anti-American views."
Furthermore, part of the Saudi/NewsCorp investment deal "will allow Rotana
to broadcast directly into the U.S. market on Direct TV which is a
subsidiary of NewsCorp." That means "fanatical [radical Islamist]
propaganda" will be beamed straight into American homes.
The Rotana connection is not emphasized in public statements about the deal.
But it cannot be discounted as a significant factor in the future. The
prince is there to stay. He has signaled that he will be ready to raise his
stake in NewsCorp, so that he can "aggressively defend" Murdoch's control,
as he promised.
Previous talks between Murdoch and Malone (of Liberty Broadcasting) went on
for about a year, and collapsed without agreement. That's when the Saudi
prince rushed to the rescue. It is not clear that Malone's interest in all
this is anything more than strictly business and the Same thing with
Murdoch.
Some assume the media tycoon himself is a conservative because of the
publications he owns
and FoxNews's "fair and balanced" format. But given that Murdoch has also
given gobs of money to the Democrats(most notably Al Gore in 2000) many
have concluded that he is merely a smart CEO who knows that conservatism
sells---an obvious point missed by most other giants in the industry.
Murdoch filled a glaring gap, for which we conservatives should be thankful,
but let's be realistic. He is not necessarily "one of us."
It is hard to imagine Prince Alwaleed bin Tatal's thinking showing up in the
pages of the New York Post, which is staunchly conservative and very
emphatically pro-Israel. But newspapers have flipped on editorial policy
before The Post itself was left-wing liberal when it was owned by the late
Dorothy Schiff. It can change again. Conservative publishers such as Colonel
Robert R. McCormick (the Chicago Tribune) and previous generations of the
Chandler family (the Los Angeles Times) would have heart attacks if they saw
their papers today.
So with a Saudi on the board of directors and playing
golf with Murdoch, Murray wonders how soon can we expect that "people like
[Bill] O'Reilly and [Sean] Hannity, who have been critical of the Islamists,
are going to be taken to one side" and told to "tone it down a little."
Your reporter will monitor this, and keep our readers informed.
Wes Vernon is a Washington-based writer and veteran broadcast journalist.
Email
the Editor
|
