Rupert Murdoch Defends Glenn Beck's Racist Cries to Win His First BuzzFlash Media Putz Award

BUZZFLASH MEDIA PUTZ OF THE WEEK

Rupert Murdoch

For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.

In searching for a Media Putz, we try to find one over-the-top incident within a week. This week's winner made it very easy to select him due to multiple infractions.

Backing up Glenn Beck's cries that President Barack Obama is a racist is enough to get you the Media Putz crown. But this wasn't Rupert Murdoch's only offense -- this week.

However, we should start with the big stuff.

DAVID SPEERS: The Glenn Beck, who you mentioned, has called Barack Obama a racist, and he helped organize a protest against him. Others on Fox have likened him --

RUPERT MURDOCH: Yeah.

SPEERS: -- to Stalin. Is that defensible?

MURDOCH: No, no, no, not Stalin, I don't think. I don't know who that -- not one of our people. On the racist thing, that caused a [unintelligible]. But he did make a very racist comment, about, you know, blacks and whites and so on, and which he said in his campaign he would be completely above. And, you know, that was something which perhaps shouldn't have been said about the president, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, he was right.

In the 43 seconds of video (above), Murdoch says Glenn Beck was right (uh, no), Obama was a racist (still, no), and claims no one on Fox News compared Obama to Stalin (wrong again, Glenn Beck did so).

And how did we find this out? By watching Murdoch being interviewed on Sky News Australia, owned by, you guessed it, Rupert Murdoch. Imagine how difficult the questions would have been if, perhaps, Murdoch had the courage to go on a network where he doesn't directly control the financial fate of his interviewer.

The finishing touch came when a spokesperson for Murdoch claimed that the News Corp. founder "does not at all, for a minute, think the president is a racist." It was as if the video and memory of the incident didn't even exist; we have the proof. Murdoch said so.

That would be enough for one person, but not someone with the well-diverse gumption of Rupert Murdoch. There are the allegations about the New York Post stemming from the lawsuit over Sandra Guzman's firing. Guzman says she was fired after complaining about the New York Post's despicable Obama-dead chimpanzee cartoon from earlier this year.

Guzman says the paper's Washington bureau chief said the goal of the paper was to "destroy Barack Obama."

Guzman's attorney, on Keith Olbermann's "Countdown," said "Rupert Murdoch is certainly responsible for this racist and sexist environment. So stay tuned about whether he will be able to avoid this lawsuit." If even a quarter of the allegations are true, racism and misogyny run rampant in Murdoch's New York Post.

Then there is Murdoch's quest to delink his properties from Google. Google does help spread the word of media stories to reach new audiences, but Murdoch is only worried about pennies. But given the recent financial losses that his newspapers have suffered, perhaps Google is a handy excuse to assign blame.

Oh, we're so scared. The anguish of losing online access to the "not even good enough to help litter-train a puppy" New York Post isn't worth the sweat of thinking about for two seconds.

We go after Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Roger Ailes, Col Allan, and numerous other Fox employees for their mishandled, misguided realm through what some people would call journalism. But in the end, when the paychecks come around, this is all about Rupert Murdoch.

In an era where there is great concern over monopolies in the media, Murdoch prances through with owning 2 VHF TV stations in New York City, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal without concern that someone or something will change this.

To call Rupert Murdoch a "yellow journalist" might be insulting to what yellow journalism used to be. But we'll settle for calling Murdoch our BuzzFlash Media Putz of the Week.

This is Rupert Murdoch's first individual award, though his media properties and their employees have won countless times. You can see a list of all previous winners here.

BUZZFLASH MEDIA PUTZ OF THE WEEK

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