Monday, November 19, 2007

Judith Regan, Rudy Giuliani and the Death of Fox?

Well, there is hope anyway. Things could just about to be getting interesting for Fox News in the US. This from The New York Times:

Ms. Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against her former employer, claiming she was unjustly made a scapegoat for the O. J. Simpson “If I Did It” fiasco that (briefly) embarrassed Mr. Murdoch and his News Corporation. But for those of us not caught up in the Simpson circus, what’s most riveting about the suit are two at best tangential sentences in its 70 pages: “In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”

Yes, let that last sentence roll around your head. A Fox executive advised her to lie to investigators. And it gets more intriguing:

Who at the News Corporation supposedly asked Ms. Regan to lie to protect Rudy’s secrets? Her complaint does not say. But thanks to the political journal The Hotline, we do know that as of the summer Mr. Giuliani had received more air time from Fox News than any other G.O.P. candidate, much of it on the high-rated “Hannity & Colmes.” That show’s co-host, Sean Hannity, appeared at a Giuliani campaign fund-raiser this year.

Clearly Fox News had it in their interest to protect Giuliani and seemed intent on breaking the law in order to do so. Typically, the Murdoch owned media have closed ranks:

Fox News coverage of Ms. Regan’s lawsuit last week was minimal. After all, Mr. Giuliani dismissed the whole episode as “a gossip column story,” and we know Fox would never stoop so low as to trade in gossip. The coverage was scarcely more intense at The Wall Street Journal, whose print edition included no mention of the suit’s reference to that “senior executive” at the News Corporation. (After bloggers noticed, the article was amended online.) The Journal is not quite yet a Murdoch property, but its editorial board has had its own show on Fox News since 2006.

So, whilst Giuliani trades on his 'heroic' role in the events of 11/9, Murdoch's empire is apparently prepared to break the law to ensure he is protected from any attacks. Such allegations, if proven, could hit right at the heart of the Fox News network and expose it as the lying, deceitful, law breaking extremist fringe that it truly is. For that, we must all be grateful.

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