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Brian Lowry
In its recent dispute with
Fox's parent has developed a pretty good business covering politics, and appears to relish injecting politics into business. The company's faith in this strategy is intriguing, since the general reaction to most intra-showbiz squabbles is a pox on both their houses.
Fox and
While such exchanges are fairly common in cable-carriage standoffs,
The most blatant example occurred a half-dozen years ago, when the company bankrolled an entity dubbed the Don't
The danger was that the new methodology would reduce ratings for minority viewers -- thus depressing revenues for Fox's major-market stations, which disproportionately appeal to the large minority populations in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Hiding behind a rainbow coalition, Fox effectively snookered various liberal politicians -- including then-New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Rev. Al Sharpton -- into advancing the company's cause by urging
With the News-owned
Under Roger Ailes' leadership, Fox News Channel also long has operated much like a political campaign, which includes dispensing with the false pleasantries and civility that are so common in the media industry -- where nobody is fired, as displaced executives segue to "independent production deals" or spending more time with their families.
By contrast, FNC's PR team bluntly (and entertainingly) impugns rival talent for registering dismal ratings and dismisses competing executives as failures, fabulists and loons. This pugilistic posture -- often capped off by the mock-sincere line, "We wish him well" -- prompted
Still,
Fox can hardly be blamed for creativity in aggressively pursuing its corporate interests -- though there's certainly a raw stench of cynicism in the underlying belief that third parties can be manipulated into taking sides and carrying its banner.
The bottom line is that Murdoch's stewardship of
It's too early to determine whether that game plan actually benefited the company during the