Saturday, May 19, 2007

Rudy and Rupert

Are you getting the same blatantly pro-Giuliani vibe from Fox News that I'm getting?

I'm not big into consipracy theories, but one can't help but question whether the ruler of the Fox News empire, Rupert Murdock, has been able to lerverage his media outlets to help his buddy Rudy Giuliani. I'll just say that it's theoretically possible.

Ted Turner is not someone I generally take seriously, but he did say some interesting things about Rudy and Rupert back in 1998.

Check out this New York Times article:

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani responded yesterday to allegations by the cable entrepreneur Ted Turner about the Mayor's connections to one of Mr. Turner's cable rivals, Rupert Murdoch, calling them ''totally, absolutely false.''

The Mayor dismissed the suggestion that he has a conflict of interest in dealing with Mr. Murdoch's media empire because his wife, Donna Hanover Giuliani, works for a television station owned by Mr. Murdoch.

It was the first time Mr. Giuliani has specifically responded to charges that have emerged from a dispute between Time Warner Inc., the company to which Mr. Turner recently sold Turner Broadcasting, and Mr. Murdoch's Fox News Channel. Time Warner has refused to carry the Fox News Channel on its cable system in New York City, and the Giuliani administration has tried to intercede on Fox's behalf.

The Mayor said that in a deposition Mr. Turner gave to city lawyers on Friday, ''Turner says that Rupert Murdoch was a major political contributor to me. He just makes that up. Rupert Murdoch has never made a political contribution to my campaign of any kind.''

In the deposition, Mr. Turner did not say the Mayor received contributions from Mr. Murdoch. He did say Mr. Murdoch had ''bought the government of New York City.'' He also said Mr. Murdoch, who owns The New York Post, had put the Mayor ''in his pocket'' by endorsing him in a Post editorial and by employing the Mayor's wife as a reporter and anchor on WNYW-TV, Channel 5, which Mr. Murdoch also owns.

Regarding his wife's work on Channel 5, the Mayor said he had received a legal opinion from the city's Corporation Counsel ''that there is absolutely no conflict,'' because she works for ''an entirely independent company.'' The Mayor said he believed Mr. Turner was making false claims to try to make his cable news network the only one available to New Yorkers.

If anyone has further information on this connection, let us know...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have DEFINITELY noticed the PRO-Giuliani bias at Fox. The Sean Hannity show carries a heavy Giuliani bias. Fox news in general does. Your piece here reinforces my conviction that I wasn't just making it up. Maybe the Hanover connection explains it, but it has definitely shot down the "fair and balanced" perception I generally carried for FOX until now. SO INteresting, you guys post stuff I just don't find elsewhere. Perceptive stuff.