Breaking: Fox "News" journalistic integrity in doubt

The title of this post is, of course, a joke. No reality-based observer believes that Fox, acting as the official spokesmouth of the GOP, has any integrity. However, Fox's latest issue advocacy crosses over a new line of pure hubris.

The Fox Business Network focused on what it called “The War on Business” all last week, but on Tuesday its coverage was decidedly more focused — with a series of reports about a California ballot initiative that its parent company, the News Corporation, had spent $1.3 million to defeat.

To be fair, Fox is the only major media corporation that's contributed to the opposition to CA Prop 24 that "would repeal $1.7 billion in corporate tax breaks to help close the state’s budget gap."

Executives at media companies, which employ tens of thousands in the entertainment industry, say defeating the proposition is one of their biggest priorities in the midterm elections, and they question how they would continue to operate in the state if taxes go up. [...]

The News Corporation, the Walt Disney Company, Time Warner, Viacom, CBS and General Electric, the owner of NBC, make up six of the nine biggest donors to No on 24. The companies declined to comment about the proposition. The three other contributors of more than $1 million are Cisco, Genentech and Qualcomm.

It becomes more clear every day that media consolidation is at the root of our toxic political discourse. Information is power, and while Fox may be the greatest offender, all the major media companies are guilty of abusing it. It's well past time to break up the conglomerates before they destroy civil society completely.