Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Not all heroes wear capes.

Second rate reporter says what?

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it’s a trap.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

This really is a full service blog.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Monday Night Open Thread: Happy Thought

Monday Night Open Thread: Happy Thought

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Just saw Alex Wagner interview Angelo Curosone RE palace intrigue at Fox & the strong possibility the other three Murdoch children in the family trust might overpower Lachlan & change the direction of the entire corporation, including Fox News, & now I may be more eager for Rupert to kick than Trump

— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) December 10, 2024 at 9:28 PM

Backstory, per the Guardian:

A Nevada court dealt nonagenarian media mogul Rupert Murdoch a major blow on Monday. And one that could – potentially – shatter his plans to secure his rightwing legacy.

Behind closed doors, Murdoch has been involved in a legal battle for control of the family’s media assets, pitching the mogul and Lachlan Murdoch, his political protege and heir apparent, against the patriarch’s three other oldest children.

The battle isn’t about money – it’s about power. The senior Murdoch wanted to change the family’s trust to ensure that Lachlan, CEO of Fox Corporation and chairman of News Corp, would control the empire after his death rather than sharing power with his siblings James, Elisabeth and Prudence…

The spat will not end here but by failing to secure his eldest as his rightwing successor, Murdoch now faces the prospect that following his death – more liberal Murdochs may want a say in the the content flowing from what is now the world’s most powerful conservative media empire.

That Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Times, the Sun, the Australian and others under the News Corp umbrella could move in a different political direction would be bad for business, as Murdoch’s attorneys are believed to have argued in court. Fox News is the most-watched cable news show in the US and reported revenues of $14bn for fiscal year 2024. But while that may or may not happen, the business won’t benefit from replacing a media titan like Murdoch with squabbling siblings.

“This is the end of News Corp,” said a former high-level Murdoch lieutenant speaking on condition of anonymity. “The whole point is that unless one person runs it they can’t make decisions so they will fight over the direction of Fox News. Who is the editor of the Wall Street Journal? It will be controlled by the kids, become directionless, and lose its rightwing focus,”…

Just losing this fight can’t have been good for the old man’s blood pressure, either, I’m thinking.

Open for debate, if you’re squeamish about karma, but…

Yes, I know Newsmax or OAN or something new will try to fill the void if Fox stops being, you know, Fox. But they won’t be anywhere near as powerful, bc they won’t be able to lose money on something like Fox News bc the parent company makes so much money in other divisions. I don’t want to get…/2

…too excited about this—like when I thought Obama would be able to fill Scalia’s seat—but if this happened soon the effects could be monumental. It would essentially decapitate Trump’s TV propaganda operation

Rupert is 93. But Mugabe lived to 95. Raul Castro is 93. Horrible people sometimes…/3

…live incredibly long lives. As long as Rupert is alive Lachlan is in charge, & Lachlan is more extreme than Rupert. And in 2-3 years the country could be so damaged that the end of Fox as it’s been for 30 years won’t matter much.

But man, I’m fantasizing Fox already changing by January 20th /4

Re: Trump or Rupert?

[image or embed]

— 🎵Don-we-now-our-gay-app-ar-al”🎵🎄🧑‍🎄 (@dondrennon.bsky.social) December 10, 2024 at 9:33 PM

Reader Interactions

64Comments

  4. 4.

    Percysowner

     

    Awful as he is and he is awful, I would have to root for Trump to survive, mostly because I think Vance is just as, if not more, dangerous and a lot more smart. Plus, if he doesn’t have a Fox News, right wing media presence pushing certain views, he may well moderate (well as much as he can in this Republican Party) because he wants to hold onto power. I mean, I think RFK Jr. and the other criminals that Trump has elevated would go, but they would be replaced with more competent right wing zealots who actually know what they are doing.

  6. 6.

    WTFGhost

    The very idea expressed that one person should control all this media? Yeah, that’s the very essence of anti-trust legislation – that no one person *should* control that much.

    I mean, if the real brilliance was the wise guidance of a brilliant newsman, then you’d still expect the news sources to converge to *roughly* the same coverage as before. If it was because of heavy handed publisher control? Then they’d diverge, and they should.

  8. 8.

    Ohio Mom

    As someone once said, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”

    Going to sleep now with a smirk on my face.

  9. 9.

    SpaceUnit

    Sorry folks.  But Fox News ain’t gonna change its political slant, no matter who owns it.

    Economics 101.

  10. 10.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @SpaceUnit: It doesn’t have to change its slant. Fox media just has to let the truth slip through and stop making things up. That’s what I hoped would happen a decade ago when I assumed Rupert couldn’t be with us much longer. How wrong I’ve been.

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    “kids”

    Lachlan is 53.

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    David Folkenflik was interviewed on NPR today about this. He made the point that it’s an “irrevocable trust”. Sure, lawyers can argue about anything, but the whole point of these things is that once they’re set up they cannot be changed.

    [ womp, womp ]

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Since this is an open thread, here is the most recent rage rotting people’s brains in the PRC:

    Rui Ma 马睿
    @ruima

    One of the hottest trends in Chinese consumer internet this year … Revenue from short video dramas 短剧 — serialized stories of 1-2 minute episodes typically totaling 60-120 minutes, designed for vertical viewing on phones—has surpassed movie box office. Operators compare them to “mini games” rather than traditional long-form media. Creators attribute their addictiveness to the fact that they cram “2-3 movies’ worth of drama into one series” and the “3-7-21 rule,” where every 21 seconds must evoke a new emotion to maintain engagement. I forgot what the 3 & 7 stand for though. 

    Hongguo app from ByteDance has broken out to be a category leader with many predicting it to be the next 100mm DAU app. (It was at 30mm in October and many think it’s about 50mm now). It was also the fastest growing app this year in China.

    Exact breakdowns are hard to find, but it appears the 45+ age group has the highest ARPU in this category. Surprisingly, surveys, including one from JD, reveal a counterintuitive trend: younger people (under 35) are highest in health-related spending, while older adults are increasingly driving online entertainment spending.

    Saurabh
    @SS_Croaker

    3 seconds: To grab someone’s attention.
    7 seconds: To provide an overview or reason for someone to stay engaged.
    21 seconds: Within 21 seconds, you should establish a clear idea of your message or provide enough intrigue to keep someone interested in exploring further.

    Total opium for the masses. Not at all surprised that it is the product of ByteDance, owner of Douyin & TikTok.

  16. 16.

    Martin

    @YY_Sima Qian: They tried something like that here in the western market. They weren’t 1-2 minutes but closer to 5, but similar concept. Mostly Vine stars in a pretty slapdash written drama format. It got some success from younger viewers but it never generated enough revenue to afford decent writing/acting so the whole thing largely died out.

    Pulling box office money is impressive.

  18. 18.

    Splitting Image

    @SpaceUnit:

    They would quickly go bankrupt.

    Their viewers / consumers don’t want the truth. They desperately want all the made up things.

    My understanding is that Fox’s big cash advantage isn’t that their shows get better numbers than the other news channels. It’s that they get a bigger cut of everybody’s cable bill than the other channels get.

    They will be a money maker until that changes. In other words: people tuning out wouldn’t directly hurt them. People lobbying to have them removed from cable packages will hurt them.

    Note: It’s true that people are unplugging and getting their news from other sources, but the Fox audience aren’t really leaders in that area.

  20. 20.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Martin: I think it was a Chinese entrepreneur in the US who thought this format had promise in the American market. 5 min is probably too long for this kind of trashy content, though.

    Right now, the PRC government is taking a light regulatory touch in order to keep the economy steady during the transition from real estate/infrastructure investment led growth to advanced manufacturing & consumption led growth, as well as girding for the escalation of the trade & tech wars by Trump, but this is the kind of thing ripe for a regulatory crack down later (a la online gaming for children).

    Then again, this is just the video version of the trashy online novels w/ risqué content that has filled the Chinese internet for years, & the regime has only taken inconsistent steps to crack down.

    Opium for the masses has its place.

  21. 21.

    Martin

    @Splitting Image: Cable subs are dropping 5% per year. That tends to produce a reduction in returns to networks above that 5% because overhead is being covered by fewer customers.

    They’re making up for it in other areas, but 5% annual decline is pretty rough.

  23. 23.

    Peale

    @YY_Sima Qian: I hate this idea more than anything else and it must be stopped at all costs and the youth of the day need to learn to buck up and deal with 30-60 minute episodes of series like adults or I’m going to start whacking people with my cane. I don’t actually have a cane, but I’m willing to invest in one.

  24. 24.

    danielx

    Trying to work up some sympathy for Rupert Murdoch and his travails legal and otherwise, and coming up short. adding to my lengthy list.

    “I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

  25. 25.

    moonbat

    Every empire was considered invincible until it wasn’t and that holds for media empires too.

    I hope whatever James, Prudence, and the other Murdoch offspring who isn’t Lachan have planned for the old man’s empire has Rupert rolling in his grave should they choose to de-Trumpify the network. It’s not like backing 45 was a business winner for them after an near billion dollar judgement against the company for lying and defaming with ‘Stop the Steal.’

  26. 26.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @danielx: Yeah, I’m definitely in the camp of “my sympathy is reserved for his/her/their victims”.

    And your quote reminded me of one, apparently from Mark Twain: “I didn’t attend his funeral, but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    “Quick are the mouths of earth, and quick the teeth that fed upon this loveliness.”
    — Thomas Wolfe
    .

  29. 29.

    sab

    Very OT: Please don’t let your cats run loose.

    My first cat was an indoor outdoor cat (I didn’t know any better) and he was killed by a car at 15 months.

    We moved last summer and now have ADT security cameras. I entertain myself by checking up on the camera every day. We never activate it because we are concerned that if we screw up and the cops answer the alarm they might shoot our barky but harmless pitbull.

    A couple of nights ago I watched one of the three local cats who wander our property at night. Usually he comes around the garage, checks out the back deck, then circles to the front of the house and then wanders next door.

    That night, instead of wandering across the front of our house, he trotted down the driveway. Then he speeded up and ran across our surprisingly busy residential street. A passing car missed him by a cat length (not a typo- cat length not car length.) He made it across but it was close.

    I thought he was streetwise, but apparently there is no such thing with cats.

  30. 30.

    bobbo1

    @SpaceUnit:

    But Fox News ain’t gonna change its political slant, no matter who owns it.

    Yeah, Murdoch’s “more liberal” billionaire offspring will leave their supposed liberalism outside the studio and just be ruthless capitalists when it comes to their golden goose.

  31. 31.

    karen gail

    One idiot at Fox is suggesting that Trump will expand country by land purchase; suggesting Greenland, the idiot wasn’t sure about Canada.

  32. 32.

    Chris Johnson

    Quick, more Mangiones!

    It’s a neat thought experiment. One of the things that gives you most furiously to think, is that good old assumption that media is created BY its viewers. Like LazerPig says in ‘How To Kill A God’, “But you’re IMMUNE to propaganda! Ain’tcha?”

    Even here people carry on insisting the MAGAs are all simply evil orcs incapable of humanity that you don’t have to think about, and so in the absence of a literal Fox News they will create one. Because clearly they created Fox News, it didn’t create them, right? They’re immune to propaganda? The existence of Fox News and horrible propagandistic shit means a giant democraphic of evil orcs who are all just naturally out there, right? And the giant media conglomerate just comes to existence like flies on shit to serve a market that by definition created them?

    Yeah nope.

    The tragic thing is people will go along with pretty much whatever if it’s crafted to sway them in the right way, and the methods have been clear enough since WWII. Like the Men In Black line, people in the aggregate are dumb panicky animals, particularly around aggregate measures like voting. And so you get enough criminals running the show, and they’ll morph the people INTO orcs for their own benefit, and try to run them to best advantage, and here we are.

    Terry Pratchett in Unseen Academicals suggested that men CREATED orcs, and even having done so, had to be there with the whips in order to ensure sufficiently orclike orcs. And so it is, and here we are again.

    Fuck Rupert and Lachlan. Orc-creators and suppliers of the whips, the lot of ’em. You have to work real hard and be a big fanatic to be that bad. Would that we had a society who’d jail people for being that bad.

  34. 34.

    Princess

    @YY_Sima Qian: I’ve seen some of these on Instagram and Facebook. Or at least I’ve seen a big chunk of some of them. They’re hilarious. But interesting as a window into Chinese tastes in popular narrative. I see why they are popular. It’s hard to look away.

  35. 35.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Princess: I see them come up on WeChat and Jinri Toutiao all the time, & I always have to avoid the temptation of clicking them, or force myself to stop w/in a couple of minutes.

  36. 36.

    satby

    @sab: They can be streetwise, but just like people they can also misjudge distance and slow down with age or illness. People think they need to be outside to satisfy whatever primal urges they assume cats have. They don’t. They can play hunt, climb, and life a full, happy, safe life inside. My current cats were all outside, some semi-feral, and they don’t even try to get outside now. They recognize a good thing when they have it!

  39. 39.

    Quinerly

    I realize that there are some here who seem to be anti MSNBC.

    Last night’s shows were excellent. I knew nothing of the internal Murdoch fight until Wagner’s show.

    The first 15 mins of LOD’s show on Biden’s accomplishments was stellar.

    Stephanie Ruhl’s hr always closes out my night. She’s incredibly sharp and relatable.

  46. 46.

    Quinerly

    @Raven:

    Excellent observation. Don’t get me started. Winking emoji.

    Always glad to see your nym on a morning thread.

    Hope you are doing well. I have difficulties discussing health in writing. Just know that every time I fire up a BJ thread I think of you.  You and Ozark were my first interactions with commenters here after I had lurked for so many years and then commented for the first time.

    Well, you two…..and then there was CornerStone hurling insults at me after my very first comment. Miss that guy.

    Hope you have a great day with your beautiful bride. Hearts and smiling emojis.

  47. 47.

    Quinerly

    @Raven:

    That’s cool.

    I have gotten into butterflies and moths since moving to NM. I am big on my night pollinators. I call them my “night shift.” I have added a little all white plantings area. Sacred Datura and a few others. Those hummingbird moths swarm that area. I’m learning loads of stuff.

    Boy, when my life changed, it really changed………But, I digress. Winking emoji.

  49. 49.

    TS

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    He defines economic knowledge – pointing out the stupidity of  what trump’s cronies are thinking they will achieve. A gleam of light in an ocean of economic stupidity. The reasons why GOP economic choices never work, yet the media proclaims otherwise.

  51. 51.

    TBone

    Car-sized mystery drones, operators of unknown origin.  The Inquirer article is paywalled but this headline blurb says it all:

    The mystery drone sightings in Jersey are spreading to the Philadelphia suburbs, prompting more questions and calls for action from both residents and elected officials.

    Blurbs from the Inky:

    Scores of mysterious drones have been spotted blinking and hovering over New Jersey in the past month — as many as 50 in one night, some as large as cars.
    👾 Reports began in northern counties, where the devices prompted concerns because of their proximity to President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf course and Picatinny Arsenal. The sightings then spread to South Jersey, and now Philly and its suburbs.
    👾 It’s not clear if the drones are coordinated or who’s behind them. The FBI has said it’s investigating, and that they aren’t a security threat. Still, details remain scarce.
    👾 Jersey officials, including 20 mayors, are demanding action from Gov. Phil Murphy. Residents want answers, too: “Somebody’s got some explaining to do,” said a Haddonfield man who saw them above his neighborhood and compared their sound to “choppers in a Vietnam War film.”

    Not paywalled:

    https://6abc.com/post/large-drones-spotted-philadelphia-area-fbi-investigates-mysterious-drone-sightings-new-jersey/15630194/

    “My other concern is that there are multiple drone sightings. They’re almost in a flock. If they were geese, they’d be in a flock, and that’s what’s really unnerving for people,” she said.

  52. 52.

    Geminid

    @NotMax: One of the weird things I learned while following Turkiye’s May, 2023 election was that while most Turkish media to a pro-Erdogan linr, Fox-Turkey was an an exception. Tben I learned that Fox had sold Fox-Turkey to Disney ten years before.

    The idea of a Fox-Turkey is itself kind of weird. I can see why Turkish President Erdogan wanted to change the standard English spelling of “Turkey” to “Turkiye.” It wasn’t just Erdogan’s own resemblance to a turkey.

  54. 54.

    Jeffro

    @TBone: it’s funny, my RWNJ dad mentioned this to me last week (he lives in the region).  I thought he was nuts but hey…stopped clocks and all that.  =)

    Maybe it’s Dark Brandon, preparing to exercise some of that awesome presidential immunity?  (please?)

  55. 55.

    TBone

    @TBone: one day while traveling a country back road, we came upon a huge, unmanned mitary drone.  It was performing maneuvers that I didn’t think possible.  It was pointing itself straight up vertically, wooshing upwards, then flipping to straight down, wooshing down to within what seemed inches of crashing into the ground.  Up and down, up and down, repeatedly and almost noiselessly.

  57. 57.

    TBone

    @Jeffro: ha!  I’m glad you know someone who has witnessed this phenom IRL but dang, sorry your dad is a RWNJ.  If I’d heard it from him, I’d doubt it too.

    I think someone with too much money has reasons for spending it thusly (and not good reasons).

  58. 58.

    TBone

    @TBone: military, not ‘mitary’ gah.

    Autocorrect changed my original word to ‘mutant’ and I thought I’d corrected it back.

    Anyway, an object of that size practically defying gravity was unnerving.

  59. 59.

    Quinerly

    First polling I have seen on the Hunter pardon.

    “That displeasure tracks with the bipartisan uproar in Washington that ignited over the president’s about-face. The survey found that a relatively small share of Americans ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ approve of the pardon, which came after the younger Biden was convicted on gun and tax charges. About half said they ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ disapprove, and about 2 in 10 neither approve nor disapprove.”

    https://apnews.com/article/hunter-biden-pardon-poll-approve-disapprove-survey-cb7b7e4931b0a778bd0a68cc1733c4a9

  60. 60.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I saw that Charlottesville’s CBS19 News posted an article yesterday about beady-eyed Bob Good’s future plans. One of the subtitles referred to speculation that Good intends to run for President. I couldn’t get the story to load, but that could be because I was laughing so hard I may have fatfingered the prompt.

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