Posted on 09/10/2015 11:38:18 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Rupert Murdoch just bought National Geographic. Here’s the problem everybody should be talking about.
The media was up in arms yesterday at news of Murdoch's high-profile acquisition. Here's what you should know.
The news that National Geographic has now been placed in the hands of Rupert Murdoch prompted a predictable outcry, roughly akin to what happens in the movies when the clearly evil tycoon takes the orphans away. A bastion of popular science is now controlled by a very prominent climate change denier who, despite his company’s assurances of editorial integrity, has spent decades interfering with the independence of his properties. A tabloid king could now apply the values of the New York Post to one of the world’s oldest magazines.
I’d be the last to tell anybody not to worry when Murdoch comes to town, but some of the agita missed the fact that National Geographic has had a long partnership with Murdoch’s media empire, most notably through the Nat Geo TV channel. (You didn’t think Nat Geo was airing all of those Bill O’Reilly documentaries because of their educational value, did you?) National Geographic may be sacrificing its non-profit status, but Wednesday’s deal partially cemented what had already been put in place.
Still, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take anything away from how unsettling it feels to see a stalwart brand like National Geographic go down such a blatantly commercial path. It has whiffs of the creepiness that surrounded the announcement that HBO will now be the primary home for “Sesame Street.” Both events highlighted the deplorable lack of a non-profit media infrastructure in the United States.
America spends a fraction of the money other industrialized countries do on public media. Networks like the BBC or CBC are far from perfect, but they have a commitment to public service broadcasting that puts American networks to shame. PBS, a mere minnow in this universe, still produces programs on art, science and history that would never make it onto a broadcast network. If you want anything beyond weather reports, top 40 and horrible people discussing sports, public radio is pretty much the only game in town.
Of course, public media in and of itself is not the answer. The news that PBS or NPR produce, for instance, is often as bland and corporate-friendly as the news on any of its rivals, and public broadcasters are often subject to government pressure. But it’s noteworthy that PBS’s biggest troubles have inevitably come from the compromises it has made with business interests in an effort to secure more funding.
There are those who point to cable, with its hundreds of channels, and say it negates the need for more public broadcasting, but that ignores history. Look at the History Channel, or Bravo, or A&E, or TLC. All of them started out doing very worthy things. Then they realized there was more money in moving downmarket. Now, History does lots of reality shows about loggers, and while Andy Cohen is definitely providing a needed public service, it’s pretty clear that his stuff would be out of place on PBS.
I’m not against any of these channels. Who doesn’t love Bravo? But it’s a problem when one beloved public or non-profit institution after another throws up its hands and decides it has to go corporate. More to the point, “Sesame Street” was only able to thrive because it came about during the relatively brief period when the government was actively behind the expansion of public broadcasting. If we don’t figure out how to give more support to public and non-profit media, there’s no guarantee that the next “Sesame Street”—or, for that matter, the next National Geographic—will even get off the ground.
Air Force terminology for a crash that wipes out the farm and must be bought and also refers to the demise of the pilot.
Maybe it’ll go back to being the fine non-partisan magazine of my youth?
The “farm” is a 6x3x6 foot plot or as we call it the grave
Drafted soldiers in WWI would talk about buying a farm when they got home but when they were killed they only got a 6 foot farm.
Her life moved backwards over that time. The Stone Age wasn’t good for women, but neither is the Islamic Age.
I got almost 2 paragraphs in before I realized I was reading complete pap from a leftist jerk.
I must be slipping or maybe it’s just getting too late.
Has anyone ever met even one of these global warming morons that can even begin to explain just how is it global warming works?
All of Murdoch's visual media holdings are held in 21st Century Fox and his print assets are held in NewsCorp.
A good example of this was/is Cosmos. The original Cosmos was Carl Sagan via PBS.
The new Cosmos(2014) with Neil Tyson was financed by Seth McFarlane but produced by 21st Century Fox and was aired by both Fox Network and the Nat Geo Channel..
This week, covered extensively by the media, was/is Dawn of Humanity, which was co-produced by Nat Geo TV and PBS Nova that aired on PBS Nova on Wednesday and available on the PBS website yesterday.
Exactly!
I’m happy about this.
Except now I’m not. Because Murdoch is not supporting conservatives.
Murdoch is supporting BUSH.
I am no longer supporting any Murdoch venture. It’s a shame too, I’m relearning television, without watching any Fox channels.
Shame on Fox.
Corrected link
“From 1965 until around 2000, I subscribed to National Geographic”
Once in awhile in a doctor’s office I will run across an issue and pick it up to see if any change had occurred and find out...NOPE!
The lib media is worried about editorial integrity? LMAO!
I have a tree falling in the woods type question:
If I buy cable tv and never even plug in the tv, does the liberal media still get paid?
THANK YOU!
You beat me to it.
The Nazis were far from Christian. They just didn’t as overtly suppress religious institutions as the the Soviets, which is a very low bar.
As with most totalitarian operations, the real God was the State.
I received a gift subscription for N.G., it’s still, every page, a reference to “global warming” or “climate change”. Simply unreadable.
The Letists have hated his anti-Commie stance going back to the 1960s in Australia and then England.
As a kid in the early 1970s....I had an uncle who would come by once a year and dump all his copies of the year at the house. I’d spend an entire month reading carefully through each article and it was probably one of the five big enrichments of my youth
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When I was a kid, I went through the magazine, looking for pictures of uncovered boobs.
Pubic Radio, where you will hear about the testosterone fueled hormonal adventures of a transgendered butch woman on Easter Sunday morning. Where the game shows will make rude sexual comments and anti-Christian jokes.
Where liberal musicians will be celebrated and they pat themselves on the back for considering ‘all things’.
National Geographic has been busted on numerous occasions using photoshopped images (pyramids moved to fit together on the cover, zebras copied to make a herd, etc.).
Faux Science.
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