In America, newspaper publishers have always been accorded high rank and special privileges in that democracy's class-less society. The idea that publisher William Randolph Hearst arranged for the Spanish-American war to happen is widely believed inside and outside the journalism industry. When famed artist Fredrick Remington was sent to Cuba to cover the war, he sent a wire saying nothing was happening and he wanted to return back to the USA. Hearst responded: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Americans, who refuse to believe that Fox News coverage of the Bush election in 2000, the events of September 11, 2001, the run-up to the war in Afghanistan, the Invasion of Iraq, the need for the Patriot Act, and George W. Bush's reelection in 2004 was anything other than fair and balanced, are quite willing to believe that Fox's owner did not make any effort to dictate America's political history or foreign policy.
Did William Randolph Hearst manipulate President McKinley into not opposing a Congressional move to start a new war? (Back then Congress not the President would start a new war.) If Presidents were manipulated in the past; can they still be "played" in the age of cable news that travels at the speed of light?
Did Rupert have anything to do with the British Prime Minister's invitation to America to join them in using oil rich Libya for target practice? Rupert doesn't just happen to have a few shares of BP stock does he?
The Hearst saga is echoed in the film thought by many critics to be the greatest movie ever made: "Citizen Kane." In the Orson Wells classic film, a fictional newspaper publisher, Charles Foster Kane, is portrayed as a champion of the poor and down trodden who cleverly manipulates the United States into the war with Spain.
The New York Times' lead story for their Sunday, July 17, 2011, print edition (written by Don Van Natta Jr.) asserts that (some) journalists working for the American citizen and renowned newspaper publisher (in Great Britain, the USA, and Australia), Rupert Murdoch, may have hacked some phones in their pursuit of the never ending fight for Truth, Justice, and the Murdoch way of life.
The New York Times story jumped to a full page inside Section One and was augmented by a sidebar story that elaborated the details of Murdoch's personal full, complete, and (should the qualifier "apparently" be used?) contrite apology to one crime victim's family on Friday.
The lunatic conspiracy drones have been galvanized into action this past week and are asking questions to raise new suspicions in all three countries. They hint that if the Murdoch employees in Great Britain committed some misconduct (they must be assumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law) in Great Britain, then the "bad journalism" infection may have spread (unbeknownst to Murdoch himself and upper management in the two other countries) to the other news staffs in the USA and Australia.
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