rupert murdoch

How Roger Ailes used Fox News to bend the arc of media toward propaganda and away from news. In a democracy, that's an existential development.

By David Zurawik

Jun 28, 2019

After more than a year, Sinclair Broadcast appeared to be close to finalizing its controversial deal to acquire rival Tribune Media for $3.9 billion when its apparent derailment was triggered by an unlikely key player - the head of the FCC.

By Lorraine Mirabella

Jul 22, 2018

The FCC said Thursday it is stopping the self-imposed clock on its review of Sinclair Broadcast Group's planned $1.3 billion acquisition of Tribune Media.

By Lorraine Mirabella

Jan 11, 2018

Last year at this time, I wrote that we in the media had failed miserably in trying to cover Candidate Trump. We still haven't figured out how to cover President Trump. But we are getting there by working harder and behaving better than him, doing both our job and his in terms of moral leadership.

By David Zurawik

Dec 28, 2017

Fox might be the most prominent platform to have become more politically emboldened since the election of President Donald Trump, but it is only one of several that have taken a more partisan turn or made clear their intentions of serving the president’s goals in 2017.

By David Zurawik

Dec 22, 2017

Is it inapproriate for Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch to be hugging and praising each other in public when Murdoch-owned 21st Century Fox is under an

By David Zurawik

May 7, 2017

Fox still has the biggest ratings in cable news despite the staggering loss of three-fourths of its evening lineup in the last eight months. But it's also still on the wrong side of patriarchy and male privilege. And the recent firings of host Bill O'Reilly and Co-President Bill Shine underline how much trouble the network is in thanks to its 20-year history of sexual harassment.

By David Zurawik

May 5, 2017

The firing of Fox News provocateur Bill O'Reilly has been covered by the general news business as if he was the cable fraternity's equivalent of Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite. He was neither.

By Jules Witcover

Apr 24, 2017

It was hard to imagine a news organization taking any hit comparable to the one Fox did in August when founder Roger Ailes was pushed out amid charges of sexual

By David Zurawik

Apr 19, 2017

"NUTS!" opens with a dusty hand-drawn animation of two goats fucking ever so gently. That pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the Sundance-winning sorta-documentary feature about the empire-building fiction dreamed up by John Romulus Brinkley, the early 20th-century "doctor" who implanted goat gonads in male patients' testicles to cure impotence, among other ailments. That's not the truly crazy part: in the process of pretending to pioneer an absurd remedy, Brinkley actually pioneered

If big banks are not broken up, we will have a repeat of the Great Recession, says Robert Reich.

In case this part of the story was missing from your child's grade-school Thanksgiving pageant, TV is here to tell us this holiday week that the Pilgrims were a bunch of grave-robbing, food-stealing killers who lured a Native American leader to what he thought was a meal of peace only to cut off his head and stick it on a pole.

By David Zurawik

Nov 20, 2015

Robert Reich says Hillary Clinton's heart is in the right place, but will she fight for it?

Criticism of appeasement ignores Rupert Murdoch's own checkered history in that department

Tribune is just the latest multimedia news company to split up its broadcasting and publishing assets, joining Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and E.W. Scripps, which completed such a spinoff just last week. Such separation is gaining momentum as traditional media seek to adapt to the fast-evolving digital landscape.

To someone who has been engaged for most of his life in both politics and the media, the parallel story lines of Chris Christie and Rupert Murdoch are fascinating. Both hold reputations as tough, hard-fisted taskmasters -- brilliant, successful, in their respective fields: Murdoch as a publisher, Christie as a politician.

It was in Baltimore, in 2005, that the love triangle among British actors Daniel Craig, Jude Law and Sienna Miller came to a head.

It was in Baltimore, in 2005, that the love triangle among British actors Daniel Craig, Jude Law and Sienna Miller came to a head.

Ben Carson, the Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon turned conservative pundit, will join the staff of Fox News, the network announced today.

The Baltimore Sun's parent said Wednesday that it plans to spin off its newspapers as a separate company, the latest move in the Tribune Co.'s effort to focus on the more profitable television industry.

The mistakes made by social media and cable TV after the Boston Marathon bombings have continued reverberating with the discovery last week of the body of a young man falsely accused of being a suspect. We saw similar patterns after the Newtown shooting, and we need to look at this trend before the media get any further out of control.

In stepping down last week as a speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine commencement, Dr. Ben Carson again took on the role of media/culture critic and martyr to "political correctness."

But the big story that seemed to mostly sail under the radar was the embattled channel's hour-long, full-right-wing, all-out, let's-give-a-big-big-hug coronation later in the evening of Dr. Benjamin Carson, the famous neurosurgeon at Baltimore's Johns Hospital, who made headlines for what he had to say Feb. 7 at the National Prayer Breakfast.

After spending more than four years embroiled in a contentious Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, the reorganized Tribune Co. will emerge Monday under new owners and a newly appointed board, freed from its massive debt and facing an uncertain future, officials said.

The possibility that the Tribune Co. will sell its newspapers after its imminent exit from bankruptcy has set off a new round of speculation about The Baltimore Sun's future ownership — along with expressions of interest from potential buyers.

While much is being made of Karl Rove's post-election return to the air this week on Fox, I don't think that's really the news that matters these days at Rupert Murdoch's channel.

Loss of social solidarity has given rise to unprecedented divisiveness

There is no TV genre more problematic than docudrama. And Sunday's premiere of "SEAL Team Six," which claims to be the true, inside story of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, is as problematic as they come.

LiveLine product currently being used in events leading up to America's Cup

The federal judge in Tribune Co.'s long-running bankruptcy case said in a memorandum Friday that he would approve a reorganization plan proposed by the company and its largest creditors, overruling objections brought by numerous parties.

After watching coverage of the Wisconsin recall, I am convinced more than ever that it's time for a major press gut check. We have been in real trouble for a long time with TV news, but we truly have reached a new low of partisanship at MSNBC and Fox News -- and confusion at CNN.

Watching Murdoch and Ailes destroy GOP for channel's gain

Attorneys for state Sen. Ulysses S. Currie, who's on trial for extortion and related charges, began his defense Monday by calling a witness who portrayed the Prince George's County legislator as endlessly pleasant, but not very bright.

I hate the unprecedented extent to which Fox News has involved itself in Republican politics, but the channel presented a first-class, rousing and illuminating debate among GOP candidates Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty Thursday night.

And at this crucial moment when we need the down-the-middle, keen analysis that CNN usually provides, what does the cable channel give us instead? Piers Morgan. I can't remember the last time I was as angry as I was last night when CNN decided it was going to stick with Mr. America's Got Talent following the words of the leaders of two branches of government who sounded like they were never going to compromise for all the president's phony use of the word Monday night.

Conventional wisdom says US journalism has higher standards than that of the Brits. But what about sites like TMZ and the major networks paying for interviews through the dodge of licensing fees? Will we pull back in wake of News of the World scandal?

After saying what sounded like a prepared remark that this was "most humbling day" of his life, it only took about 25 minutes before Rupert Murdoch let slip what appear to be his real feelings about one of the most wide-reaching scandals in 20th century media history.

If you want to get a sense of how desperate things have become Rupert Murdoch's empire, take a look at this editorial in today's Wall Street Journal.

The media baron gets caught doing the sort of privacy-invading behaviors that post-9/11 governments have so foolishly embraced

I have been thinking about media and public shame for a while now. And events this week with Rupert Murdoch internationally and Sheila Dixon locally have focused my troubled thoughts.

Will CNN host's baggage from Brit tabloid career come back to haunt him?

The TV press is doing a conscientious and aggressive job of covering the economic story, without getting routinely played by the political spin doctors trying to use the nation's misery for their team's gain. The news operations doing the best work are CNN, CBS and ABC.