Master Opinion Blaster Episode II: Attack of the Drones

            Ladies and gentleman, welcome to part two of “Master Opinion Blaster,” the Liberal Mob chronicle of News Corp. Last week, we took a look at what exactly news is, and how News Corp’s and Fox News’ names are based entirely on deception. I laid out exactly how Fox and News Corp are particularly devoted to misleading their viewers, and quite frequently avoiding facts while “reporting the news.” Now, while this is a massive problem, perhaps the real problem isn’t that News Corp constantly misrepresents information (after all, who cares if crazy people make stuff up and scream it in the corner); it’s just how far they can scream their craziness. I imagine News Corp as being that same crazy person, only instead of screaming into a corner, they have a massive network of television channels, newspapers, and websites and have somehow managed to learn how to spell.

            It might surprise some people – it certainly caught me off guard – to learn just how much of our lives are touched by News Corp, even if we are not regularly visited with the curse that is Fox News. Two of my favourite shows, for example, are Rescue Me and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX, which is apparently owned by News Corp, in addition to Fuel TV and Speed, not to mention the National Geographic Channel (which begs the question of why News Corp allows the Republican Party to spread lies about global climate change being a myth). Those of us who are fans of movies such as Black Swan, X-Men: First Class, Date Night, Water for Elephants, Rio, & Gulliver’s Travels, just to name a few, will be disappointed to learn that these movies are products of News Corp by way of their subsidiary companies, 20^th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures. Even the websites askmen.com and hulu.com are News Corp properties. I certainly won’t list all of the assets of News Corp, which would take up my entire night, but if you’d like a list from the devils themselves it can be found here.

            It is not my intention to lobby you to not see movies made by 20^th Century Fox, and I would never advocate against watching It’s Always Sunny, but I do think that it’s important for us, the consumers, to know where our money is going. After all, knowledge is the best tool that we have available to us. Thanks to us consuming their products, in the past year News Corp had total revenue of $32,778,000,000 with a net income of $2,539,000,000 according to Google Finance. In having such a massive pile of money, News Corp is easily able to spread its message (albeit sometimes through advertising as opposed to content) without needing to turn to outside sources. Those of us watching Louie or Shark Men are unknowingly being exposed to a higher quantity of conservative messaging than those who are watching programming on another network.

            Because News Corp is such a massive company it is able to successfully plant conservative talking points in the midst of seemingly apolitical programming without the majority of us realizing that it’s even happening, as they so often claim the liberal media is doing (thusly, they must tell the other side of the story, as Chris Wallace points out in this clip). This is worrisome to me, as I am under the impression that the majority of people are smart enough not to major in political science, or work in the field of politics, nor do they spend several hours every day researching current events. As such, however, many people also don’t appreciate the full scale of many of the political debates occurring in our nation today; the mass hysteria over the healthcare reform being a perfect example. The conservative echo chamber that is News Corp was able to spread so much misinformation, and so many outright lies about death panels, healthcare rationing, and government takeovers that the tea bagger movement sprang out from the hellishness of its bowels and changed the course of our national debate for the worse. The national discourse forewent any kind of intelligent debate in favour of fear mongering and farcicality leaving us with the Republican healthcare plan of the 1990s, which News Corp was still able to sell as “socialism” to the uneducated masses of the Tea Party movement.

            In order to avoid being sucked down by the zombie-like horde of morons that actually believe the crap that News Corp is selling, I must advocate that we all do what we can to stay informed. News Corp will certainly not be shut down by the current hacking scandal, although it certainly deserves to be, and I suspect that we’ll be getting an extra dose of s**t from them thanks to Citizens United and the upcoming 2012 election. Read books, go to Reuters, and the AP, read the bills yourself (if you have the time), and do what you can to be as knowledgeable as you can be, and form your own opinions. I don’t particularly care what opinion you form, after all politics wouldn’t be much fun without more than one side, but form your own. Don’t let millionaires, billionaires, politicians, and pundits tell you what to think. If you really want America to be a better country, and you want the government to function more efficiently, remember that we are the government and we are the only ones who can make things better.