rupert murdoch

• Opinion

Roger Ailes on Showtime: The ugly legacy of a media monster

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

• Business

Sinclair Broadcasts's $3.9 billion Tribune deal appeared on track before sudden derailment

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

• Business

FCC delays review of Sinclair Broadcast's acquisition of Tribune Media

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

• Opinion

What should media do? Keep being better than Trump

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

• Opinion

Conservative media rising in Trump's America

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

• Opinion

Inside latenight takedowns of Trump and trouble for Murdoch

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

• Opinion

Fox News on the losing side of this culture war

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

• Opinion

Bill O'Reilly: Fall of a news icon

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

• Opinion

Bill O'Reilly is out, but Fox will continue to pay for sexual harassment sins

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

• Baltimore City Paper

'NUTS!': Goat testicles, radio, and lies in the life of America's most influential charlatan

"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

• Opinion

'The Big Short' and Bernie's plan to bust up Wall Street

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

• Opinion

On TV, Thanksgiving redefined with killing, theft, grave-robbing

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

• Opinion

Will Hillary Clinton fight for America?

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

• Opinion

Goldberg ignores his own hypocrisy

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

• Baltimore City Paper

Ridley Scott's baffling, biblical epic, 'Exodus: Gods and Kings'

• Newspapers

Tribune completes spinoff of newspapers including The Baltimore Sun

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.

• Baltimore City Paper

A daily newspaper company buying the alt-weekly in its market is not unprecedented, though the results are varied

• Opinion

Similar circumstances, similar falls [Commentary]

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.

• Opinion

Daniel Craig and Jude Law's awkward Baltimore conversation

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

• Features

Daniel Craig and Jude Law's awkward Baltimore conversation

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

• News Media

Ben Carson joins Fox News as contributor

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

• Newspapers

Tribune Co. plans to spin off newspapers

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.

• Opinion

After Boston, looking for solutions to mounting media confusion

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.

• Journalism

Looking for a solution to mounting media confusion and misinformation

• Opinion

If Ben Carson really wants 'rational' discussion, why's he on Fox News so often?

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."

• Opinion

Hopkins' Dr. Benjamin Carson anointed new Fox darling of the right on Hannity

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.

• Business

Tribune Co. to emerge from bankruptcy Monday

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.

• Newspapers

Possibility of Baltimore Sun sale brings interest from investors

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.

• Opinion

Forget Karl Rove, Fox role in 'Lie of the Year' is what matters

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.

• Opinion

Robert B. Reich: The new American civil war

Loss of social solidarity has given rise to unprecedented divisiveness

• Opinion

'Seal Team Six' celebrates Obama, suffers sins of docudrama

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.

• Sports

Stan Honey combines work with play for new sailing technology

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

• Business

Bankruptcy judge says he will approve Tribune Co. restructuring

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.

• Opinion

Cable TV news the biggest loser in Wisconsin recall

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.

• Opinion

Rick Santorum: What's good for Fox News is bad for the country

Watching Murdoch and Ailes destroy GOP for channel's gain

• Baltimore City Paper

The former Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times editor talks about the "deal from hell," Tribune Company's bankruptcy, and journalism's scramble for footing on the internet

• Justice System

Defense begins in Currie trial

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.

• News Corp

Cummings presses for 9/11 probe of News Corp.

• Opinion

Bret Baier, Chris Wallace make Fox News a winner at Iowa debate

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.

• Rupert Murdoch

The New Yorker vs. The Daily

• Opinion

ABC, NBC and the shameful business of news operations buying interviews

• Opinion

Obama, Boehner in debt reduction TV showdown -- and CNN gives us Piers Morgan

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.

• Opinion

Will Murdoch scandal make us pull back from Brit tabloid values?

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?

• Opinion

Hearing disrupted by shaving cream 'pie' as Murdochs give little ground in testimony

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.

• Opinion

Wall Street Journal attacks News Corp. critics, invokes First Amendment

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.

• Readers Respond

Hack this, Rupert Murdoch

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

• Opinion

Rupert Murdoch, Sheila Dixon, John Edwards -- the media and public shame

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.

• Opinion

Hack this, Rupert Murdoch

• Opinion

Piers Morgan pleads ignorance, innocence in UK phone hacking scandal

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

• Opinion

TV press doing the job on debt ceiling - Networks carry Obama's Friday news conference

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.