Archive for June, 2007

I toss out a theory: Fox News is one big reason Murdoch’s critics are so incensed by the idea of his controlling the Journal. “Oh, yes!” he cries. So is Fox News an expression of his political views? “Yes! No! Yes and no. The commentators are not. Bill O’Reilly certainly not. Geraldo Rivera certainly not. But Brit Hume and his team on the nightly news? Yes. They play it absolutely straight!”Murdoch isn’t a party-line guy. He’s a pragmatist. He likes strong politicians and change agents and winners; in recent years he has supported moderates like Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton. But he has a stubborn populist streak, and his populism finds an outlet on Fox News, a channel that gives voice to angry middle-aged white guys. “CNN is pretty consistently on the left, if you look at their choice of stories, what they play up. It’s not what they say. It’s what they highlight.” (CNN, which is also owned by Time Warner, hotly disputes this charge.) Then he mumbles conspiratorially, “And if you look at our general news, do we put on things which favor the right rather than the left? I don’t know.” Has Murdoch just said what I think he said? Has he flirted with an admission that Fox News skews right? If so, he quickly backs away. “We don’t think we do. We’ve always insisted we don’t. I don’t think we do. Aw, it’s subjective. Neither side admits it.”

Come on Rupert! You were so close, admit it already we all know!

I’m always behind when it comes to music and only recently discovered a great song by Gavin DeGraw called “Chariot” from his album of the same name. It was produced in 2003 and released in 2005 according to Wikipedia and reached the top 40 of the U.S. Hot 100. So again I come to the party late but it is heavy on my iTunes rotation. I have also returned to using the great service Last.fm and you can track what I am listening to via my Last.fm account. Look further down this page on the sidebar to see my top tracks.