Steve Jobs Called Fox News a ‘Destructive Force in Our Society’

Gawker ^ | October 25, 2011 | Ryan Tate

[lbryce]

Rupert Murdoch must have imagined Steve Jobs would be a feisty dinner guest. Even still, the News Corp. chairman couldn't have foreseen that, in one night at the mogul's Carmel, California ranch, Jobs would call his tech people incompetent, get a guy fired, and say that Fox News was literally destroying the world.

Walter Isaacson's new biography of the Apple co-founder says Jobs railed against the conservative news channel and tried to convince Murdoch to shut it down. His comments came at the 2010 iteration of News Corp.'s annual management retreat. Isaacson writes:

In return for speaking at the retreat, Jobs got Murdoch to hear him out on Fox News, which he believed was destructive, harmful to the nation, and a blot on Murdoch's reputation. "You're blowing it with Fox News," Jobs told him over dinner. "The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is conservative-destructive, and you've cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become a destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you're not careful." Jobs said he thought Murdoch did not really like how far Fox has gone. "Rupert's a builder, not a tearer-downer," he said...

Murdoch later said he was used to people like Jobs complaining about Fox. "He's got sort of a left wing view on this," he said. Jobs asked him to have his folks make a reel of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck shows - he thought they were more destructive than Bill O'Reilly - and Murdoch agreed to do so. saacson's book also confirms our 2010 item about how the Wall Street Journal's Gordon McLeod got fired for crossing Jobs at the same Carmel retreat.

[jwalsh07]

Exactly so.

[bwc2221]

Looking at the way FNC is moving left, it appears Murdoch took Jobs’ advice. FNC is becoming less distinguishable from MSM every day.

[bwc2221]

“Steve Jobs is dead.

“And Fox is not.”

You sure about that?

[willk]

Intelligence does not always=common sense.

[dfwgator]

I don’t care about their political orientation, I just don’t think Fox News is a very professional news organization.

[Paradox]

I don’t care about their political orientation, I just don’t think Fox News is a very professional news organization.

This. They are a tabloid style news organization. The fact that they are more moderate than the rest does not make them "good". I don't watch FOX either, unless I have to.

[Avery Iota Kracker]

Obviously Jobs preferred MSLSD.

[arasina]

IOW, nobody freaking cares what you think. Just go do your thing and leave all of us alone.

Shut up and 'thing'.

[dfwgator]

I think of the scene in "Idiocracy"

I think this was one of the reasons 20th Century Fox was reluctant to market the film when it came out.

[af_vet_rr]

This. They are a tabloid style news organization. The fact that they are more moderate than the rest does not make them "good". I don't watch FOX either, unless I have to.

This sums it up perfectly. I can't have FNC on when kids are around, because I never know what filth they are going to be passing off as news. It's not helped by the fact that the other parts of Murdoch's little empire are not only pushing similar filth, but also pushing the homosexual agenda.

It's a shame that nobody else has decided to come up with an actual conservative network - it'd make a fortune. Maybe not as much as pushing sleaze and filfth, but it'd still do well.

[Bernard Marx]

You're stating the obvious. I used to know a jewelry salesman who worked 47th St. in New York. He wore a little gold pendant with a Star of David on one side and a Christian Cross on the other. He was armed with a quick sense of humor and sold a lot of goods.

There's nothing wrong with "working both sides of the street" with political donations, it's only good sense. But some corporation heads like Jobs actually fall for Marxist kum-ba-ya bilge, unlike Jeffrey Immelt of G.E. who's simply a corrupt, calculating, crony capitalist s.o.b.

[hinckley buzzard]

Lots of people will be disillusioned with Jobs after reading this book. Jobs turns out to be a chronic hemorrhoid. Plain mean asshole, actually. Creative but probably a borderline personality disorder.

[RedMDer]

[hinckley buzzard]

*sigh* I'll say it again: Big money is an ally of big corporations, big banks, big gubbermint, big labor. These guys are all in on it together. There are no capitalists in boardrooms, anymore than there are workers in union halls or statesmen in gubmint cloakrooms.

[MindBender26]

The only people “disillusioned” with Fox are the leftists who are upset they no longer control the news flow.

The PEOPLE love FNC.

Check latest ratings. FNC beats all competition by 200 and 300+% !

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

[diogenes ghost]

Jobs was merely saying the same thing as many posters on this forum.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

This from the guy who sent Apple manufacturing to RED China...

[Cringing Negativism Network]

The PEOPLE love FNC.

It's hard to deny Fox is front and center, and rules the market.

This poster finds Fox pretty much in the RINO tank, and increasingly turns to Discovery channel whenever Rove or some other DOPE is on. But Fox currently has no real competition.

Brit Hume's whatever-the-heck-that-is about Cain though, is deeply disappointing.

Hume and Palin should start a club. The "how disappointing can we be" club. Lots of GOP members in that org...

[NeverForgetBataan]

I wonder if dropping acid contributes to the development of pancreatic cancer?.....

[kempster]

Funny, I know two friends who have never had cable tv, both own macs and both get their news from Free Republic and World Net Daily. Interesting that Job’s invention may bear some responsibility for keeping the right informed.