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You are here: Home / “The Simpsons” defense

“The Simpsons” defense

by DougJ|  July 18, 201111:31 pm| 46 Comments

This post is in: Our Failed Media Experiment

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The Wall Street Journal’s latest defense of Sir Rupert comes awfully close to parody (via):

Several years ago I was quite literally cornered by Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff at a New York cocktail party. What, he demanded to know, had Mr. Murdoch asked of me in terms of slanting the newspaper’s political coverage. “Well,” I replied, “All things equal he prefers shorter articles to longer ones.” Nothing else, Mr. Wolff pressed. Nope, no content direction, I said. “You must not be very important then,” said Mr. Wolff.

I’ve chuckled about that episode many times. Sometimes over drinks, more often over a cup of coffee in the early morning as I plot how to fill two pages of the primest real estate in all journalism. If Rupert Murdoch has a thought-out plan to influence politics and the op-ed editor of The Wall Street Journal doesn’t know about it, it must be a very subtle plan indeed.

[….]

If you want an example of editorial independence at News Corp., look at how often “The Simpsons” mock their broadcasters at Fox.

(bold mine)

Translation: I’m a big important guy and therefore the company I work for is good.

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Reader Interactions

46Comments

  1. 1.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    July 18, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    Surely you expected no different. It’s been getting harder to tell the mainstream press from The Onion for some time now, no?

  2. 2.

    jwb

    July 18, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    The odd thing is that the Onion would have offered a better defense writing such an editorial in parody.

  3. 3.

    Suffern ACE

    July 18, 2011 at 11:37 pm

    Odd. I don’t remember the corporation being charged with slanting reporting or its editorial content. I’m thinking all those people being arrested and resigning from public office might have been accepting money for some kind of services that shouldn’t have been performed. The fact that they are folding up rather easily does lead me to believe that they are hiding some larger improprieties, however. But I’ll just wait for it to pan out.

    I’ll read your speculations, though. It would be foolish not to speculate.

  4. 4.

    Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)

    July 18, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    Fixxed News famously threaten to sue The Simpsons over their parody.

    Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of the Simpsons over a spoof news ticker, the show’s creator Matt Groening has claimed. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/oct/29/tvnews.internationalnews

  5. 5.

    wrigleyviller

    July 18, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    Of course, The Simpsons famously has a special clause in their contract which grants them complete editorial freedom from Fox, which the showrunners cite as the only reason they get to make fun of their network.

    But what do I know, I’m just some Simpsons fan, not the op-ed editor at the primest real estate in all of journalism. I’m sure his point will hold up to the scrutiny of someone as minor as me.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    July 18, 2011 at 11:43 pm

    Tomorrow’s defense is see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. It will still be fun to watch.

  7. 7.

    Calouste

    July 18, 2011 at 11:45 pm

    I’m pretty sure there was some program on Soviet television that occassionally mocked the party apparatus while the Red Square Journal Pravda did nothing but pushing the party line.

  8. 8.

    MattR

    July 18, 2011 at 11:47 pm

    Personally, I would have gone with “The Simpsons Did It” as my post title :)

    Sad that people actually fall for that excuse.

  9. 9.

    ABL

    July 18, 2011 at 11:48 pm

    He chuckled?

    How elitist.

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 18, 2011 at 11:48 pm

    I don’t read the Journal, but I’m a political junkie and internet addict. I have heard of lots of people who are totally irrelevant and obscure. Ben Shapiro comes to mind. Ann Althouse. Fred Hiatt and band of neo-nitwits. I have never heard of this gomer with all that valuable (“primest”? really?) journamlistic real estate.

    As to “slant”, the Journal was pretty far gone before Murdoch got his claws on it, IIRC. Paul Gigot coyly giggled about his role in the bourgeois riots in FL-2000, and Gigot’s predecessor, Robert Barkley (?) made Robert Novak look like the Santy Clause from Miracle on 34th Street. IIRC Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote some stuff about John Kerry that would make Ann Coulter blush. With envy that she hadn’t thought of it first.

  11. 11.

    Cat Lady

    July 19, 2011 at 12:03 am

    The jokes would write themselves, but irony, sarcasm, parody and self referential humor have all been immolated on the pyre of “serious” journalism. The king Morloch is dead, long live the king Morloch.

  12. 12.

    Mark S.

    July 19, 2011 at 12:05 am

    If Rupert Murdoch has a thought-out plan to influence politics and the op-ed editor of The Wall Street Journal doesn’t know about it, it must be a very subtle plan indeed.

    Even before Murdoch took over the WSJ, its op-ed pages was considered a joke, about as influential as the Washington Times. Primest (which I don’t think is a word) real estate my ass.

  13. 13.

    Joey Maloney

    July 19, 2011 at 12:07 am

    o/t (except insofar as it pertains to Republican corruption), and I hate to give Politico a link, but…Did ethics staff taint Maxine Waters probe?

    The former staff director of the House Ethics Committee accused two top committee lawyers last year of secretly communicating with Republicans on the panel regarding the investigations of Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel, raising concerns over whether the long-running inquiries were compromised by key staffers, according to internal committee documents obtained by POLITICO.

    Blake Chisam, the former staff director, wrote in a late 2010 memo to then-chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) that attorneys Morgan Kim and Stacy Sovereign improperly shared information in the Rangel case with Republicans on the committee — a move that “would have so tainted the proceedings that there would have been no option but to move to dismiss.” The Ethics Committee places strict limits on the sharing of evidence during “trials” for lawmakers; committee members act as prosecutors and lawmakers play the role of a jury.

    Article includes links to documents.

  14. 14.

    slightly_peeved

    July 19, 2011 at 12:09 am

    If you want an example of editorial independence at News Corp., look at how often “The Simpsons” mock their broadcasters at Fox.

    Considering Murdoch was willing to voice himself on the show, he, unlike the chief editor of the Wall Street Journal, might be aware that The Simpsons is a comedy show featuring cartoons and therefore an unlikely source of watergate-style expose journalism.

  15. 15.

    kd bart

    July 19, 2011 at 12:09 am

    Beats The Chewbacca Defense.

  16. 16.

    Stefan

    July 19, 2011 at 12:13 am

    If you want an example of editorial independence at News Corp., look at how often “The Simpsons” mock their broadcasters at Fox.

    Shorter: why, we even have a court jester!

  17. 17.

    SST

    July 19, 2011 at 12:25 am

    “Do I believe some editors and reporters could have skirted ethical norms without direction or knowledge at the top? Yes, such things happen in large organizations.”

    Ah, yes. Not guilt. Incompetence!

    ETA: Wait, yeah no. Guilt, too. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/world/europe/19tactics.html?

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    July 19, 2011 at 12:28 am

    Translation: I’m a big important guy and therefore the company I work for is good.

    It’s telling that senior journalists, executives, and editors at various Murdoch properties have not resigned. That might show far more than these faint protestations of independence.

    More and more, these revelations remind me of the George Smiley novels. Government officials become enraptured with their own cleverness and kiss up to those with dazzling connections. In the end, the whole mess collapses in a web of corruption, and those who had previously been pushed aside are recalled to repair the damage.

  19. 19.

    wag

    July 19, 2011 at 12:31 am

    sounds like Rebekah Brooks needs to find a smarter class of co-conspiritor, someone who takes the job of getting rid of evidence more seriously

  20. 20.

    SST

    July 19, 2011 at 12:34 am

    So Bobo thinks this crisis is an opportunity for Serious Republicans to retake control of the GOP. But, to paraphrase another enormous asshole, Mitch Daniels ain’t walking through that door.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/opinion/19brooks.html?

  21. 21.

    Tom

    July 19, 2011 at 12:38 am

    “Shorter: why, we even have a court jester!”

    totally stealing that one. awesome.

  22. 22.

    Mark S.

    July 19, 2011 at 12:47 am

    @SST:

    Bobo:

    Fortunately, there are still practical conservatives in the G.O.P., who believe in results, who believe in intelligent compromise.

    Name one.

  23. 23.

    Yutsano

    July 19, 2011 at 12:49 am

    @SST: Shorter Bobo: “I spent my career cheering for the nutjobs, but now that they’re gonna spike my 401(k) I pine for the days of sanity.” Too late asshole.

  24. 24.

    Another Bob

    July 19, 2011 at 12:52 am

    It’s almost 10:00 pm here in California. Haven’t any other NewsCorp mucky-mucks been fired and/or indicted in the last half-hour? No recent security cam pics of Rupert Murdoch holding a bloody tire iron?

  25. 25.

    Adam

    July 19, 2011 at 1:05 am

    If Rupert Murdoch has a thought-out plan to influence politics and the op-ed editor of The Wall Street Journal doesn’t know about it, it must be a very subtle plan indeed.

    If you’re in the passenger seat of a car travelling down a highway, and the driver is driving exactly the way you want them to drive, you don’t need to tell them how to drive.

    You simply give them praise and allow them to continue to drive.

    If Mr. Pollock really believes that the Wall Street Journal wouldn’t try to influence the politics of it’s editors and journalists then he should attempt an experiment where he writes a series of articles for a number of weeks that go against what he believes Mr. Murdoch would approve.

    If he is able to complete the series of articles without any attempts by someone from higher up to influence him then his thesis is true and believable. I highly doubt it would play out that way though.

  26. 26.

    dead existentialist

    July 19, 2011 at 1:06 am

    This from the “editorial features editor.”

    WTF is that?

    Sad apologia is very very sad. WSJ is the freest of the free according to this twit, which makes me sad for the word, the concept, the notion of “free.”

  27. 27.

    Suffern ACE

    July 19, 2011 at 1:12 am

    @Mark S – well there are those hundreds, dozens, handfuls, six-odd elected officials who didn’t sign Norquist’s pledge because of a feeling of independence, public spiritedness, they were out sick that day.

  28. 28.

    Joel

    July 19, 2011 at 1:27 am

    @SST: Rick Pitino is definitely a republican.

  29. 29.

    JGabriel

    July 19, 2011 at 1:42 am

    Robert Pollack @ WSJ:

    I’ve chuckled about that episode many times. Sometimes over drinks, more often over a cup of coffee in the early morning as I plot how to fill two pages of the primest real estate in all journalism.

    I hate to break the news to you, Robert, but that real estate is starting to look a little tainted and less prime. Few people take the WSJ seriously anymore, especially those who need objective business news more than partisan GOP talking points.

    Face it, Robert, even without the scandal, you guys screwed the pooch. WSJ has become Foxified and Murdoched and its former reputation as a good source for business news (despite the extremist right wing editorial page) is trashed.

    .

  30. 30.

    JGabriel

    July 19, 2011 at 2:10 am

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    Surely you expected no different. It’s been getting harder to tell the mainstream press from The Onion for some time now, no?

    The Wall Street Journal Opinion pages have long been a far fucking cry from anywhere near mainstream — they’ve been a self-parody of right wing extremism for at least two or three decades now, maybe longer. My memory of the WSJ doesn’t go back further than that.

    .

  31. 31.

    isildur

    July 19, 2011 at 2:20 am

    “I am not clever enough to see how I’m being manipulated. Therefore I am not being manipulated.”

    I think I’ll call it the ‘ostrich defense’.

  32. 32.

    burnspbesq

    July 19, 2011 at 2:51 am

    @Mark S.:

    Tom Coburn is looking pretty good today. He went way off the prepared talking points, proposing to eliminate a trillion in tax expenditures. Now someone will say that he deliberately made a proposal that has zero chance of happening, and that may be so. But his fellow goopers have to shout him down, and that’s just one more bad sound bite.

  33. 33.

    Dennis SGMM

    July 19, 2011 at 2:51 am

    “primest”?

  34. 34.

    Dennis SGMM

    July 19, 2011 at 2:54 am

    @JGabriel:

    I hate to break the news to you, Robert, but that real estate is starting to look a little tainted and less prime unprimest.

    FTFY

  35. 35.

    Cris (without an H)

    July 19, 2011 at 2:56 am

    The dog who sits close to the peg never feels the leash.

  36. 36.

    SRW1

    July 19, 2011 at 3:23 am

    “… two pages of the primest real estate in all journalism”

    Careful now Mr Scribbler, that kind of delusion has gotten better people committed.

  37. 37.

    arguingwithsignposts

    July 19, 2011 at 5:47 am

    @14 slightly_peeved:

    he, unlike the chief editor of the Wall Street Journal, might be aware that The Simpsons is a comedy show featuring cartoons and therefore an unlikely source of watergate-style expose journalism.

    And this differs from the WSJ editorial page how?

  38. 38.

    Surly Duff

    July 19, 2011 at 7:22 am

    “the primest real estate in all journalism”

    Thousands of hedge fund managers blithely pass over the editorial page to get to the business section of the WSJ daily! Our editorial pages can be found in the wastebins of the greatest financial corporations the world has ever seen!

  39. 39.

    lonesomerobot

    July 19, 2011 at 7:26 am

    Yes, the Simpsons, which can be mistaken for nothing but entertainment, makes much more money for News Corp. The WSJ, on the other hand, was purchased for the specific purpose of spreading propaganda. It’s definitely prime propaganda real estate, and Scribbler wouldn’t be the first employee to be dutifully ignorant of his employer’s transgressions.

  40. 40.

    dedc79

    July 19, 2011 at 8:05 am

    This statement is ridiculous for about a hundred reasons, and I’ll just throw one more into the mix. If you were looking for Murdoch’s influence on the WSJ, the op/ed page would be the last place to look. It’s already in the tank for the republicans and super pro-business, so Murdoch didn’t need to change anything there. What readers were and continue to be concerned about is the WSJ’s news coverage, which can be quite good. The concern is not only that it would decline in quality but that it would evade topics that Murdoch didn’t want covered.

  41. 41.

    Steve

    July 19, 2011 at 8:10 am

    Can anyone name a Murdoch newspaper that didn’t support the war in Iraq?

  42. 42.

    kay

    July 19, 2011 at 8:19 am

    I love how all these cowards are ignoring the fact that the police agency was corrupted and compromised by Rupert Murdoch and his big bags of money.

    Not a good thing, in a free society. Big, red flashing lights should be blinking. That alone should alarm and horrify even a nominally awake and aware public. And (good for the public) it does, and has.
    Weirdly, it doesn’t bother these fake-sophisticate apologists at all.
    Which means they’re reckless and stupid and out-of-touch and not worth the trust of their readers, because they’re way behind their readers in figuring out the import of this.

  43. 43.

    Stefan

    July 19, 2011 at 9:01 am

    If Rupert Murdoch has a thought-out plan to influence politics and the op-ed editor of The Wall Street Journal doesn’t know about it, it must be a very subtle plan indeed.

    I’m sure Stalin never had to tell Pravda what to print, either….

  44. 44.

    JGabriel

    July 19, 2011 at 9:38 am

    dedc79:

    What readers were and continue to be concerned about is the WSJ’s news coverage, which can be used to be quite good.

    Minor correction.

    The concern is not only that it would decline in quality but that it would evade topics that Murdoch didn’t want covered.

    If it wasn’t obvious before now that this has already occurred, the WSJ’s coverage of the bugging & bribery scandal should prove to the meanest observer that it has become fatally compromised by Murdoch’s agendas and is no longer a factually reliable news source.

    .

  45. 45.

    Carol from CO

    July 19, 2011 at 2:46 pm

    The thing is he’s a big important guy who has known rupert for decades, thinks like rupert and doesn’t need any hints or orders about how to slant the news.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Reading Digest: Everyone Thinks the Same Thing Edition « Dead Homer Society says:
    July 22, 2011 at 12:41 pm

    […] “The Simpsons” defense – It’s probably not a good sign when the only example of News Corp editorial non-interference a Wall Street Journal editor can come up with is the Simpsons. […]

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