Takethe5th Picks and Pans

The Republican Presidential campaign has been a dramatic example of Just in Time Journalism. Each time a new candidate has reached the top of the Media Hype Heap a simple fact-checking pin prick  does in the new  Pseudo Presidential front-runner. And there have been 7 pretenders  - Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Hermann Cane, Newt Gingerich,  Ron Paul, and the latest Rick Santorum – all Whack -a-moled in one month or less of Hype Heap Riding. And you guessed it, after nearly winning the Iowa Presidential Primary, Rick Santorum is the latest to be subject to This-Time-The-Real-Media  Cross Examination [aka  the Hype Heat]. And right on time, Howard Kurtz at The Daily Beast delivers a Double Heap of Heat:

The media assault on Rick Santorum has begun. Turns out he was a tough-guy lawmaker who played hardball with lobbyists and made a bundle after leaving the Senate.In other words, a typical member of Congress.

This is all fair game, mind you. In fact, it’s the kind of information the voters of Iowa might have found useful before propelling Santorum into a virtual tie with Mitt Romney in the caucuses (or a victory, if reports of aRomney overcount are to be believed). But the press didn’t care then. Santorum was an also-ran, a loser, a single-digit guy. Until he wasn’t….

The Post is joined by the New York Times in reporting that Santorum made $1.3 million in 2010 and the first half of 2011 by selling his services to various industry groups, and in a similar vein as Newt Gingrich, Santorum was not registered as a lobbyist. For instance, after pushing two bills in the Senate to steer hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicare money to Puerto Rican hospitals, the ex-senator joined the board of United Health Services, where he hauled in $395,000 in fees and stock options. And how did investigative reporters unearth this information? It was in Santorum’s  financial disclosure form.

This is exactly the kind of scrutiny that a presidential candidate should be receiving. Too bad the media didn’t take Santorum seriously enough to provide it until now.

But really Kurtz is right on with the second remark. Why did the media and Press choose to ignore the qualifications of Rick Santorum?
Ye editor has scoured the Web for a media outlet [newspaper, magazine, political websites, even wikipedia] that provides a list of the candidates with a summary of the qualifications, political history, strengths, weaknesses, upside potential and/or downside risks[aka "skeletons in the closet"]. Just a capsule summary is sufficient in briefing style maye double Twitter’s 140 character limit for each category the Press chooses to pursue. It would be nice to have a  pros and cons approach lest it be mistaken for a political ad instead of journalistic coverage.

Ooopps – Journalistc Coverage Is Opinion and Infotainment

Media Shift is  the informative  coverage  by PBS of the decline of traditional paper and even broadcast media in favor of  the Web as the news medium of choice. Seeping through the convenience and financial advantage stories is the the picture of the press in gut-wrenching transition as  wholescale cutbacks in journalist  employment and coverage  are occuring in newspapers, magazines and local radio and television.  But two aspects of the change investigated by PBS  have gotten shortchanged. First, it goes back to Marshall McLuhan hot and cold media. Traditional press like newspapers and magazines are relatively cool – once a day to once a week [or month]news cycles . Traditional black and white layout, people read the news to become informed, there is a strong fact checking aspect to cool media. Hot media like radio and now TV and Web are fast breaking, full of emotional sound, fury and action video, shorter on facts-longer on opinion. Second, as hot media like radio, TV and now the Web with social media  prevail with their built-in  hot, emotional aspects – opinion, especially outrageous, humorous, and entertaining opinion prevail. News and fact checking take second seat to the hot media’s priority:  infotainment. And so the Fourth Estate has such aberrations as Fox News Networks  where opinions  become  News and Ooops-we-made-mistake-in-fact, but now that the show is over with we shall issue a required correction. Or more common – short of the facts,  Just in Time Journalism.

John Stewart’s the Daily Show along with the Colbert Report and Real Time with Bill Maher are crossing the News-Infotainment Divide in the opposite direction – going from infotainment and humor to educating their audiences on some rather subtle aspects of  current political events[also note the balance here, Democrats get their fair share of criticism as the Republicans]. See the full misadventures here. And thank the Gods that Humour is filling in where the Media, especially TV News Media , simply dare not tread.

Some media argue that Occupy Wall Street, now that it has been disbanded will peter out and the group will have minimal influence. Don’t let anybody sell you that notion. The vote in Ohio on November 8th restoring Union Collective bargaining in state and local government showed that Occupy Wall Street had managed to change voting preferences.Suddenly the one-sided cut deficits,no new taxes idea from Grover Norquist and the  the Tea Party lost credibility in the face of charts like these:

The basic Inequality of the Past 30 Years
 
Whats happening in Income for  the top 20%- It really  is only the top 1% More charts supporting the 99% argument But the most important effect is that the national media and financial press finally found itself having to cover the issue of fairness, distribution of income, money in politics and why and how Washington has become so dysfunctional at a time in World Economic affairs when the US can least afford it. Here are three examples of national press finding voice on these key isues. Bloomberg - Workers sliding share of pay poses consumer spending risk for economy.

Income gains in the U.S. are slowing and workers’ slice of the earnings pie is shrinking, raising the risk that consumer spending slackens next year. Gross domestic income, or the money earned by the people, businesses and government agencies whose purchases go into calculating growth, rose at an average 2.8 percent annual rate from April through September after climbing 4.3 percent in the previous six months, Commerce Department data on Nov. 22 showed. Employee compensation last quarter accounted for its smallest share since 1955. In contrast, the portion accruing to corporate profits was the biggest since 1950, showing companies are hoarding cash as concern grows that a European country will default on its debt and that deficit-reduction gridlock in Washington will continue. Without more pay and a pickup in hiring, households may ring in 2012 by making their own budget cuts.

This should have been said starting in 2001  during the Bush presidency when the economy was wavering and wrenching job cuts were becoming almost the kneejerk response of big corporations. But the Press going through its own painful layoffs at that time stayed clear of the topic.

Bloomberg and Christian Science Monitor – Investigate the OWS  priority push to  get money out of politics. Bloomberg explores an analysis by Harvard Law’s lawrence Lessig that defines the widening conflicts represented by longtime excesses in campaign finance and lobbying practice made much worse by the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision that unleashed all constraints on campaign and lobbying spending by corporates and other special interests. lessig not only defines the problem but offers some novel approaches to reigning in political spending. The Christian Science Monitor looks at the money in politics problem but is skeptical that the problem can be effectively addressed because most of the solutions require bipartisan Democrat and Republican support.

Forbes- Lobbyists Offer An ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Smear Campaign For Just $850,000There is a palpable irony here, as the group that Occupy Wall Street see as the number one threat to the US, weedlike spread of lobbying power in government, confirms their power with a wild, proposed overhand smear shot against Occupy Wall Street. Only in the America of an arrogant, super wealthy  top one percent. Finally, the last word belongs to NYTimes Paul Krugman who describes the top 1%:

…even within the top 1 percent the gains are going mainly to a small minority. An earlier CBO report, using slightly different methods, looked inside the top 1 percent up through 2005.The biggest gains have gone to the top 0.1 percent. So income inequality in America really is about oligarchs versus everyone else. When the Occupy Wall Street people talk about the 99 percent, they’re actually aiming too low…. Look, I understand that some people find the notion that we’ve become an oligarchy — with all that implies about class relations — disturbing. But that’s the way it is.

The US, creator of great wealth, has once gain given away way too much wealth to much too few. But now that  Occupy Wall Street has opened that Pandora Box fact for scrutiny, the Press can treat that question however it so chooses.

Well wouldn’t you know it – what media player is first to follow up on the now evicted  Occupy Wall Street concerns? Comedy Central. Yeah, it is Jon Stewart again doing a series based on the question: If we let the bankers off  the hook why the f**k did we send Martha Stewart to jail? Jon promises to make it an ongoing series of spoofs. The irony is that spoofs will truly be laughs until you hurt.

In an article on her website, Ariana Huffington raises the issue of the level of lying in politics – Mitt Romney Brazenly Lies and the Media Lets Him Slide. Here is he crux of the complaint against Mitt Romney and his election team:

The lie is found in Romney’s first television ad, run last week in New Hampshire. The ad shows President Obama saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” What the ad doesn’t tell you is that this was from 2008 — and that Obama was quoting an aide to John McCain at the time. Here is the full Obama quote: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’” (The full speech can be found here.)

This is far from the garden-variety truth stretching we’re used to in political advertising. This is so breathtakingly cynical it should cause us to question whether a candidate that would put it forth is fit for any public office — let alone the presidency.

Ariana was as furious with many  in the media and Press as she was about the dirty trick of the Romney campaign. She feels too many let the issue slide through and  names the culprits from NYTimes and Politico through to PBS Washington Week and even FactCheck.org. The problem is described as follows:

Along with being deceitful, the ad is also a challenge to the media. It’s like when a toddler looks right at you and slowly and deliberately spills a glass of milk. The child wants to see the reaction. It’s a test of boundaries. If there’s no reaction, then the message is that it’s OK

Ye Editor agrees exactly with Araiana. Too much of the past two years has seen the Media and Press turning a blind eye to blatant lying by politicians and  even worse,  ”news” sources like Fox News,and many in the Rupert Murdoch publishing world. Britain has gotten to see the consequences of the latter with. Mediamatters,org and Factcheck.org are expected to carry the load on keeping political players honest.

But the problem with Mediamatters.org and Factcheck.org is a)they simply do not have the reach of the major TV, Press and online sources and b)because so much of the deception is emanating from Republican sources[of top 10 recent week of Factcheck stories, 8 are GOP misdemeanours, 1 is both parties and 1 is Democratic missteps], one gets the impression they are biased against the GOP.  So media control groups like Factcheck can be branded as “liberal think tanks”.

Worse,  the GOP is by far the worst offender in terms of lying and slander. But they are not alone, the Democrats unleash low blows too. So the GOP can always say – “see , the Democrats do it too”. But its sort of like the recent  Israeli-Gaza conflict – for every 1 Israeli casualty, there were 10 Palestinian casualties. The attacks and political partisanship are asymmetrical; its as if the GOP were using Terrorist tactics. Use  extreme radicals like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Glen Beck to launch outlandish smear campaigns, followed by Fox News “opinion” pieces supporting some of the details, followed by GOP Think Tanks that  who have a dollar budget  and numeric advantage over Democratic and neutral institutions. So the level of lying and smear available and used by the GOP has radicalized political partisanship in Washington – making it more dysfunctional than ever before.

Ye Editor who strives to achieve journalistic credence with direct links to most major assertions in Takethe5th articles and postings, find these War of Partisan attrition so worrying. The US is confronted with a series of Economic, Resources, and Environmental problems that global and far reaching. The US and the World have littlemargin or  time to make major missteps. Yet thwarting any progress is  an attitude of  “we can dismay and  dupe most most of the people most of the time” which now prevails in politics. The GOP is saying can deliberately damage the economy to gain political success and suffer no consequences. It is quietly terrifying.

Harry’s Law, in yesterday’s episode called Head Games, takes up the Occupy Wall Street Message in full form.The episode deals with a woman whose home is foreclosed; so in desperation she goes and robs one of the bank’s branches. The team’s defense for the woman is the so called Outrageous Government Misconduct defense. In the closing arguments, the Harry’s team cites the outrageous misconduct of the US Government in the Mortgage Meltdown.

The arguments are savvy and up to date. Thousands of Bank’s Mortgage instruments were given highest AAA ratings by the bond agencies right up to the moment where turnover transactions revealed them to be junk or worthless. Derivative CDOS that supposedly protected lenders from these bad debt were themselves useless because the carriers had too many and their valuation was risk deficient. And the mortgage companies bamboozled customers in contravention of their fiduciary trust obligations duping them to take on more debt and at high variable rates than they could afford. All of these financial parties then relied on the government to bail them out when the financial system seized up. Yet none of these financial agents of great misfortune were criminally prosecuted, none of them served time, and most are back on the Street. See the episode here for the exact argumentation.

This is the first time I have seen a popular TV show make the case of recent events in so unequivocal terms. Even 9/11 took until the tenth year anniversary to get coverage of the events [CSI/NY this Fall] or following a 9/11 action more than tangentially. Ditto for Iraq and Afghanistan – even NCIS or FlashPoint deal with these war issues peripherally. In contrast, Harrys Law took the Outrageous Government Misconduct defense for all its worth in a most compelling closing arument.

Unfortunately, this episode may have been a last hurrah by Harry’s Law  writers. The rumor that Harrys Law is being cancelled may have some truth to it because despite the Google Search links to You Tube episodes, they end with this message:

Since all the Harrys Law episodes are hard to find, there appears to be no conspiracy to suppress this episode. Nonetheless one can see why the eviction of Occupy’s Peaceful Protests may achieve “out of sight; out of mind” effectiveness. Will Occupy Movement now find an active Web presence to preserve and promote the Occupy message? Take a fifth and admit NO. Harrys Law got too close to the truth – how can ordinary people observe the Rule of Law when it has been so blatantly bypassed in the Law’s treatment of the malefactors in the Financial Meltdown? Literally, just like in voting and access to politicians, there is the 1% class and the other 99% that make up the Hoi Polloi – the portion of the public to be largely and safely ignored – and thus the 1% answer to different Rules of Law.

Is it a tenor of the Times that only an American writing for a British paper, the Guardian, could produce a plausible story of why the Occupy Movements, predominately peaceful, non-violent protests, were shutdown? Naomi Wolf writing for the Guardian,has produced a story that shows that Federal Homeland Security officials worked in co-ordination with 18 mayors to dismantle the Occupy Wall Street movements across the country:

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.
But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that “New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers” covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that “It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk.”

However, the account quickly turns darker, as Naomi sees more than just harried municipal officials at work:

…. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on “how to suppress” Occupy protests.

To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.

I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. … As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.

That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted….

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

The crux of Naomi’s argument is that “Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class’s venality” – the ability to deal in insider information on Wall Street by Congress and members of the Executive branch. And the recent 60 Minutes report based on Peter Heizer’s book would lend credence to Naomi’s Congressional indiscretions [as Naomi noted, insider trading by Martha Stewart of a less degree got her 90 days in the Slammer]. Given the 60 Minutes story, ye Editor is of mixed minds as to the motivation for the clearing of the streets. And so also it appears does Dow Jones:
Wall Street Journal – Congress’s Insider-Trading Non-Scandal
Marketwatch – Congressional insider trading: The story sticks
But on whether there is an oligarchy of the top 0.1% of Americans buying their way to unprecedented influence in the Federal Government, of that I have no doubt.

Here is one party that can’t believe that the GOP, Masters of Manipulation of their Message, allowed so many debates to take place. God bless them, because unlike in the  broader media coverage and analysis, much is being revealed in the debates about the candidates inherent knowledge of the domestic and world scene, their beliefs and sentiments, plus their own decorum and self-control. And Las Vegas was a Doozy of Revelations.

The New York Times and the DailyBeast catch the full  and many flurries of verbal fisticuffs in the Las Vegas  debate. Everybody had moments of brilliance and come-uppance as raw emotional joustings occurred. One of the best outcomes of the debate is a feature that is appearing in the NYTimes [and to a lesser extent the TV media] – many news outlets  are doing front page and almost immediately after the debate Fact Checking on what was said. This fact-checking  has become  a  vital and just-in-time dose of reality which  is desperately needed now that  politicians characterized by Arizona GOP Senator Kyl who regularly use DoubleSpeak -#NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement … ahem.

But absolutely top marks have to be given to Andrew Sullivan for his live blog of the debate [Apple does not have a monopoly on live blogs]. Here are some of the better observations available from Andrew

9.16 pm. You can see Romney’s strategy. Remove from all public consciousness anything that happened before Obama took office, and then blame everything bad since entirely on him. Which is roughly the entire Republican argument: amnesia.
9.32 pm. Santorum actually believes that we cannot save “one penny” on defense. When the US sits on a massive continent surrounded by vast seas and spends more than every other country on earth on defense … we are terribly vulnerable to a tin-pot country like Iran.
9.40 pm. God bless Ron Paul. He actually calls Ronald Reagan on Iran-contra! God love him. Gingrich does damage control for the Gipper. But this has been a lively debate – going to places we haven’t yet been.

To think just 153 years ago Prime Time for the USA were the Lincoln Douglas Debates which were about Slavery and Abraham Lincoln was the GOP-Republican candidate.

The NYTimes, just like in its coverage of the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami, show that it is ahead of the print and Web media pack with its coverage of Hurricane Irene with its interactive storm track. This Google Map powered animation shows the relevant timeline and trail of  Hurricane Irene, its precise direction, wind power, etc.

As with all Google Map apps one can zoom in and see the precise path and projections of it future movement. This is valuable for New Englanders and Maritime Canadians because they will have to bear the brunt of what appears to be the second major hurt from Irene – flooding and power outages.
Whats missing? No idea of the storm surges to be expected as Irene passes through. Also there is no overlapping of rainfall patterns as seen on the National TV coverage. So the NYTimes Interactive is ahead of the rest  of the Web media like the Time, theDailybeast.com, WSJ, and even the Web based TV networks – but still has room for improvement. And given what hurricane forecasters are talking about for the rest of the season, the NYTimes may get an opportunity to move even further ahead of the pack.

If Pastor Rick Warren can say ”Half of America Pays no Taxes, Zero”-  you better believe it! But Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast has helped to uncover some data that refutes this notion easily. The Pastor is beginning to sound like Senator John Kyl of Arizona who was caught damning Planned ParentHood(“90% of its services are abortions” – 3% is the true number) which the Senator’ later attempted to explain away his remark before the Senate as  “not intended to be a factual statement”. There have been a number of  voices taking Pastor Warren to task see here and here.  But the  Christian Post rushed to the defense of Pastor Warren citing the mistaken words of “liberals”. But I thought Pastor Warren was a “liberal”.

Read the Tax Foundation study for yourself and decide if Pastor Warren spoke without a basic understanding of the economic facts.  And also check the OECD report that finds that the USA has the lowest level of actual  taxation among 35 developed countries with exception of Mexico and Chile. In sum onerous taxation is not the problem; but rather uncontrolled Republican spending which they are now turning on a dime and saying we have not seen the error of our ways since we are now blaming the deficits on the “tax and spend” Democrats

But the essential and real al problem here is that Pastor Warren, heretofore a voice of moderation between conservatives and liberals, could be found to be so wanting in basic understanding of the social and economic facts.Second, the only  correction Pastor Warren has made is to remove the statement from his twitter log. No Kylian “this was not intended to be a factual statement”  but no apology either. Not good for a pastor devoted to Christian outreach.

News Corp International is the name of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire that stretches from his native Australia [owning many of the largest Australian newspapers] thru Europe with many interests based in England [including Harpers Collin Book Publishing, Sky Italia and other Sky TV networks, several newpapers including the Sunday Times and the just now defunct News of the World] plus major holding in the U.S. with Twentieth Century Fox in movies, Fox network in TV, Fox News in cable news, the complete set of Dow Jones financial newspapers and other properties. News Corp outlets have a reputation in the newspaper and media business of being relentless if not ruthless in their journalistic practices[see here for an assessment of Fox News]. The verdict is now ruthless.

The  scandal that has broken out in England shows that  News Corp newspapers have been criminally and  journalistically negligent on a massive scale. These include illegally wiretapping/hacking into the phones of politicians, movie stars, families of British war casualties and crime victims; bribing police and public officials to get access to information and to suppress investigations; plus stealing medical and other confidential records from various databases. And it was not just the tabloid scandal sheets like  the Sun and the now shuttered News of the World but also the prestigous Sunday Times and the News Corp TV channels that were also complicit in the gross misdeeds.

Newsweeks Carl Bernstein raises the depth of the issue calling this Murcdoch’s Watergate -

The hacking scandal currently shaking Rupert Murdoch’s empire will surprise only those who have willfully blinded themselves to that empire’s pernicious influence on journalism in the English-speaking world. Too many of us have winked in amusement at the salaciousness without considering the larger corruption of journalism and politics promulgated by Murdoch Culture on both sides of the Atlantic.
The facts of the case are astonishing in their scope. Thousands of private phone messages hacked, presumably by people affiliated with the Murdoch-owned News of the World newspaper, with the violated parties ranging from Prince William and actor Hugh Grant to murder victims and families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The arrest of Andy Coulson, former press chief to Prime Minister David Cameron, for his role in the scandal during his tenure as the paper’s editor. The arrest (for the second time) of Clive Goodman, the paper’s former royals editor. The shocking July 7 announcement that the paper would cease publication three days later, putting hundreds of employees out of work.

Time Magazine’s Massimo Calabressi speculates on whether Murcdoch’s troubles will cross the Atlantic to the US. Newsweek’s Bernstein implies the ambition was there:

Almost every prime minister since the Harold Wilson era of the 1960s and ’70s has paid obeisance to Murdoch and his unmatched power. When Murdoch threw his annual London summer party for the United Kingdom’s political, journalistic, and social elite at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens on June 16, Prime Minister Cameron and his wife, Sam, were there, as were Labour leader Ed Miliband and assorted other cabinet ministers.

Murdoch associates, present and former—and his biographers—have said that one of his greatest long-term ambitions has been to replicate that political and cultural power in the United States. For a long time his vehicle was the New York Post—not profitable, but useful for increasing his eminence and working a wholesale change not only in American journalism but in the broader culture as well…

Then came the unfair and imbalanced politicized “news” of the Fox News Channel—showing (again) Murdoch’s genius at building an empire on the basis of an ever-descending lowest journalistic denominator. It, too, rests on a foundation that has little or nothing to do with the best traditions and values of real reporting and responsible journalism: the best obtainable version of the truth. In place of this journalistic ideal, the enduring Murdoch ethic substitutes gossip, sensationalism, and manufactured controversy.

And the record of misdeeds at just one of Murdoch’s US media properties, Fox News, shows the same chronic repeated offenses in doctoring/editing stories to fit the Fox/News Corp agenda. The revelation of Fox News misdeeds by Jon Stewart’s Daily Show is the stuff of comic legend. But there is a deep darkside to this as the chronicles at mediamatters.org show. Thus it was a surprise when the NYTimes David Brooks and Washington Posts Ruth Marcus on PBS NewsHour dismissed the prospect of Murdoch’s troubles crossing the Atlantic to the US since supposedly the journalistic traditions are so different and the breech of journalistic integrity is not nearly so bad in the US. So this leniency raises the issue of rule of law for the elites once again.
Rule Of  Law Implications
One of the continuing problems from the Financial Meltdown has been the appalling lack of civil or criminal indictments against those who perpetrated the  many financial misdeeds. The NYTimes caught the gist of this with their comparison of the prosecutions of those responsible for the  S&L  debacle of the late 1980′s and early 1990s with what has happened to the those involved in the 2007 to 2010 Financial Meltdown:

But several years after the financial crisis, which was caused in large part by reckless lending and excessive risk taking by major financial institutions, no senior executives have been charged or imprisoned, and a collective government effort has not emerged. This stands in stark contrast to the failure of many savings and loan institutions in the late 1980s. In the wake of that debacle, special government task forces referred 1,100 cases to prosecutors, resulting in more than 800 bank officials going to jail. Among the best-known: Charles H. Keating Jr., of Lincoln Savings and Loan in Arizona, and David Paul, of Centrust Bank in Florida.
Former prosecutors, lawyers, bankers and mortgage employees say that investigators and regulators ignored past lessons about how to crack financial fraud.

As the crisis was starting to deepen in the spring of 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation scaled back a plan to assign more field agents to investigate mortgage fraud. That summer, the Justice Department also rejected calls to create a task force devoted to mortgage-related investigations, leaving these complex cases understaffed and poorly funded, and only much later established a more general financial crimes task force.

Leading up to the financial crisis, many officials said in interviews, regulators failed in their crucial duty to compile the information that traditionally has helped build criminal cases. In effect, the same dynamic that helped enable the crisis — weak regulation — also made it harder to pursue fraud in its aftermath. [many thanks to President George W. Bush for this parting gift to the American people]

This is the crux of the problem with the economic recovery as cited here – there is simply no credible deterrence for bad behavior by financial and corporate elites because they see themselves as above the law – either the strict letter of the law or moral law. For example, here is another example of evasion of the letter of the law on both sides of the Atlantic and here is moral law being spurned by America’s corporate  executive elite who are rewarding themselves at record levels yet again while their employees limp along at 1/5th  to 1/10th of their compensation increases.

Now what does this have to do with Rupert Murdoch and the media scandal in Britain?
Simply this – Prime Minister David Cameron in England yesterday promised the following about the News Corp scandal:

The political pressure intensified as Prime Minister David Cameron, who had originally hesitated, finally moved on Wednesday to back the Opposition move against the bid and to announce details of an inquiry into the hacking scandal and the wider issue of media regulation and media relations with politicians and the police. And he confirmed that the judge in charge of the inquiry will have the power to call any relevant individual to give evidence under oath, whether or not they are U.K. citizens. The Australian-born Murdoch, a naturalized U.S. citizen, is expected to top the list of witnesses invited to attend. Cameron also declared that anyone involved “whether they were directly responsible for the wrongdoing, sanctioned it, or covered it up, however high or low they go must not only be brought to justice they must also have no future role in the running of a media company in our country.”

These are indeed fighting words. But England’s Cameron, which also had its own fierce financial meltdown, has a prosecution batting record against the financial and corporate elites similar to his US Presidential counterpart; roughly 0 on 999. I believe in English Cricket, this might be called a sticky wicket – you simply can’t get the criminal elites out.