23 posts tagged “murdoch press”

I will have mentioned that my father is a news junkie and goes to more news websites than most people I know. Including Fox News. You won’t get a more “fair and balanced” surfer when it comes to news.
   For the last wee while he has found it impossible to read the comments people have left on that site. If you click on ‘Comments’ on any story, you’ll just be taken back to the story. It doesn’t happen to all of them, only some.
   Yet obviously some people have been able to leave comments without any problems, which got me thinking: has the Murdoch Press blocked access to comments on its Fox News site to non-Americans? I mean, we always see messages on Hulu, YouTube and other places that prevent us from seeing TV programmes and clips.
   I know Dad has left the browser on Fox News’s site and walked away, and viruses have attempted to come in via fake ads. These are not the Murdoch Press’s fault, but it highlights how some ad networks in the US that send viruses out to people. (The Fox News page refreshes, as it has been programmed to, but eventually, it hits an ad that contains a virus, usually in the form of a fake “virus scan” message with a warning that one has been infected.)
   No online publisher who deals with US companies is immune from this (which is a terrible reflection of what passes as modern commerce these days), and we have had to alert our networks from time to time. (I should note the companies that send the viruses are not necessarily American, but they pretend to be.) The difference is we nip these attacks in the bud very early, and as far as we know, no machines have been affected. We swap out the entire ad network’s code until they tell us it has been remedied. Sadly, we have had these attacks fairly regularly via Fox News, so Dad now makes sure he leaves the browser on one of my sites (which is nice, since he has little interest in fashion publications).
   While I tell Dad that I think the Fox News site is one of the worst designed (it makes you wonder, since the same company’s Times website is rather pleasant), it really seems that the folks there don’t do much checking. No one seems to surf their own site to see if things work.
   If you head to an article referred by another one, there is no ready way to view the comments of everyday Americans. If you are a septagenarian like my Dad, you probably aren’t in to hacking. And I doubt the chairman of the company, four years my father’s senior, is in to hacking, either.
   A code, such as ?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r1:c0.095404:b26734424:z0, is appended to the end of the article URL, which essentially prevents anyone seeing the comments.

Fox News site with Loomia code

   You can try it with this article, on Gov. Palin stepping down (it’s the most recent one with a huge amount of comments!). Then click the comments’ link. Here’s what you see:

Fox News site with Loomia code, clicked once

   The remedy is to delete the extra code, so that the URL ends at the proper place, then click on the link:

Fox News site with comments

   So, it is accessible to non-Americans after all. But for anyone who doesn’t have a bit of experience with web design or publishing, this can prove difficult.
   I have checked this with an American proxy server, to find that the same behaviour occurs Stateside. For all those having difficulties with the Fox News site, and if you must browse the comments, then make sure the URL ends at the logical place, and delete the Loomia code.

PS.: Loomia turns out to be a real company, and Tweeted me today to say that they are investigating this issue. It has been around for a wee while, so I hope it’s fixed soon.

Family Guy was cancelled once. Fox brought it back when it realized there was, in fact, a huge fan following, evidenced by the DVD sales. When the show returned, the characters specifically refer to the cancellation, with this dialogue. In some ways it expresses all that is wrong about modern television and the crap people put on. (Admittedly, there were a few acceptable shows in this bunch but the majority is awful.)

   Peter: Everybody, I’ve got bad news. We’ve been cancelled.
   Lois: Oh no! Peter, how could they do that?
   Peter: Well, unfortunately, Lois, there’s just no more room on the schedule. We’ve just got to accept the fact that Fox has to make room for terrific shows like Dark Angel, Titus, Undeclared, Action, That ’80s Show, Wonderfalls, Fastlane, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Skin, Girls’ Club, Cracking Up, The Pitts, Firefly, Get Real, FreakyLinks, Wanda at Large, Costello, The Lone Gunmen, A Minute with Stan Hooper, Normal, Ohio, Pasadena, Harsh Realm, Keen Eddie, The Street, American Embassy, Cedric the Entertainer, The Tick, Louie, and Greg the Bunny.
   Lois: Is there no hope?
   Peter: Well, I suppose if all those shows go down the tubes, we might have a shot.

I rather liked Keen Eddie and the American cop-in-Britain premise (like Brannigan and Dempsey & Makepeace). And come on, it had Sienna Miller in it as the dumb-blonde neighbour. Sienna Miller, people!
   I assume American Embassy was a US remake of the 1990s’ Australian series Embassy.
   Now, back to Sienna Miller. And for those who think she’s English, she was born in NYC. Never seems to come out in interviews though.

I can see why some people dislike Fox News. Like the TV broadcast, the website makes a song and a dance and takes a long time to get to the meat of the story:

Fox News’ déjà vu

3 comments

   I began reading, ‘Carrie Prejean encouraged to surrender sash, declines offer to join beauty queens to promote the “diversity” of California in new PSA’.
   Then my eyes went down the page to read, ‘Carrie Prejean encouraged to surrender sash, declines offer to join beauty queens to promote the “diversity” of California in new PSA’.
   And then: ‘Carrie Prejean encouraged to surrender sash, declines offer to join beauty queens to promote the “diversity” of California in new PSA’.
   Yes, I get it. I don’t need to read a headline three times. I got it the first time, when it was in large type. I don’t need to read it once in 16 pt, once in bold, and once in roman. I know online Rupert doesn’t have to fork out anything in terms of printing supplies, but this is crazy.
   I got a bit further down and got a bit stuck at the sort of language being used. I wondered if this was some strange American English thing:

Tarts

   Right, they’re talking about getting a whole bunch of former beauty queens together and then the co-director is talking to ‘Tarts’? I know some people don’t like beauty pageants, but unless Tarts means something different in American, that’s a really mean thing to say.
   I re-read it in case Mr Lewis was talking to a Mr Tarts or a Ms Tarts—but there was no earlier mention.
   It took ages for me to realize that the section is called ‘Pop Tarts’, which I believe is an American term and nothing to do with the women, but some form of pastry from Kellogg’s. I know, it’s a play on words—the pop meaning popular—or at least I hope.

US Life on Mars producers, take note, from a recent Family Guy where Stewie’s killing of Lois was a virtual reality simulation:

   Stewie: Oh, hello, Brian. Well, you recall my complaining about Lois and the fat man not taking me with them?
   Brian: Yeah …
   Stewie: Yes, well you said I don’t have it in me to kill Lois, so I was just running a simulation to find out exactly how killing her and taking over the world would play out for me.
   Brian: Yeah? How’d that go?
   Stewie: Not well, Brian, not well at all. I suppose I’m not ready to kill Lois or take over the world … yet.
   Brian: So what you’re saying is what you experienced in the simulation didn’t really happen or even matter?
   Stewie: Yes, that’s correct.
   Brian: So it was sort of, like, just a dream.
   Stewie: No, it was a simulation.
   Brian: Yes, but theoretically, if someone watched the events of that simulation from start to finish only to find out that none of it really happened, I mean, you don’t think that would be just like a giant middle finger to them?
   Stewie: Well, hopefully, they would have enjoyed the ride.
   Brian: I don’t know, man. I think you’d piss a lot of people off that way.

   Kind of says it all about last night’s US Life on Mars finalé. Maybe I could call it a cop-out and say the pun was intended? It’d be one consolation for me, making bad puns.
   And now the Spaniards know how not to end their remake.

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We are signed up with the UK Press Association but it’s a tad hard to relate this item back to Lucire:

Footage of Grange Hill has apparently been interwoven into a new episode of Ashes to Ashes.
   Legendary headmistress Mrs McClusky is seen teaching DI Alex Drake’s (Keeley Hawes) daughter Molly in the first episode of the second series on BBC One, according to The Sun.
   Alex is transported to 1982 and sees Molly on the show, with Mrs McClusky saying to her, ‘We want to know why you locked yourself in the toilet.’
   Molly responds, ‘Ticker said my Mum was dead. We had a fight. Miss Mooney said I was to come and see you. I didn't want to.’
   The head teacher replied, ‘When a teacher says something to you, you have to do it. Do you understand?’
   At the end of the exchange, Molly says, ‘It’s my Mum, there’s news …’ before the Grange Hill credits roll, with Alex still watching the screen.

Sir Roger Moore is interviewed by Wossy—and despite my misgivings about Jonathan Ross, this is a very good interview. Far, far better than what Sir Roger was subjected to about his book, My Word Is My Bond (incidentally, it is excellent), when he visited New Zealand. It was apparent that Ross’s staff actually read the book. In New Zealand, the only evidence was that TV One and TV3 staff had flicked through the pictures and both Close-up and Campbell Live asked Sir Roger about a scene with Jane Seymour in Live and Let Die—which they garnered from a single caption. It was embarrassing.
   Jonathan Ross usually annoys me by going on too much but here he strikes the right balance and allows Sir Roger to tell his very entertaining yarns. Part 1 discusses Sir Roger’s childhood and his MGM days with Lana Turner, and Part 2 takes the story from The Persuaders on.

With your Murdoch Press paper—well, News of the World for the next few weeks (started last Sunday)—episodes of Life on Mars on DVD. The TVC is quite humorous:

I am glad to know that the murder of Adam Walsh has been confirmed as solved in the US.
   John Walsh’s press statements yesterday were carried here on network television, a nod to his global celebrity status.
   Mr Walsh turned his anger over his six-year-old son’s murder into a productive search for suspects across the US—and his efforts are credited for helping solve hundreds of cases.
   While Fox’s motives for showing Walsh’s America’s Most Wanted stem from the tabloid journalism that made it infamous in Australia, the UK and the US, the benefits of the show have outweighed the negatives considerably, in my mind. Selling it on as entertainment might be looked upon less charitably.
   I feel for this man. I do not know what emotions he went through when his son went missing, and then when young Adam’s severed head was found. I hope we never do learn those emotions first-hand. But I think we all understand loss and anger.
   Not all of us are as great as John Walsh in being able to turn that into a force for good.
   I also have to act in an un-Christian way because I find a child murderer’s actions disgusting and it is terribly hard to forgive a bastard nonce, even when it’s not my own kin upon whom such a horrible act has been committed.
   But God bless the Walsh family, for the suffering they have been through and for their positive contributions to crime-fighting.
   I hope many other families find justice.

The anti-Bush types were right about one thing at Gitmo: listening to endless Britney Spears is torture. From the Murdoch Press:

Brit-mo

I’ve been having a think about the hatchet-job that Gov. Palin is getting, surprisingly, from the Murdoch Press, specifically its Fox News Channel arm. Considering that she was championed by this network after her selection by the party (over Sen. McCain’s own choice of Sen. Joe Lieberman, who even my Democratic friends felt would have been a better choice to win moderate voters), the about-face shows a level of deceit either now, or before, by the media company.
   While there may have been some gentlemen’s agreement over concealing this information till after the election, I don’t think I have seen the Murdoch Press go after a political figure in quite this fashion since Hard Copy did its exposés on Sen. Ted Kennedy in the 1980s.
   To be fair, even Newsweek, on the left, has kept mum about matters till now, and I imagine other media outlets have done the same in order to maintain their access to the candidates.
   We are hearing some things about the Democrats and we now know that Sen. Obama isn’t above swearing, but overall the post-mortem, even in the conservative press, has been relatively muted about the winning side.
   But not against Gov. Sarah Palin.
   It also shows a disloyalty within the Republican Party that is not becoming of it, if it wishes to be seen as a party that was unjustly cheated out of the election this week.
   In 2000, Democrats could point to the recount process in Florida and the alliance between the state’s Attorney-General Katherine Harris and the Republican Party as having taken the presidency from Al Gore.
   This time, the divide that has occurred might leave Republicans thinking that the disunity in the party cost them the election, and they were beaten by Democrats who hid their divisions better. They may fairly and rightly point to the media as being complicit in giving Sen. Obama a free ride, just as Conservatives in Britain could in 1997, but the reality may be that there was something rotten within the GOP.
   I can’t believe campaign aides and workers coming out and breaching a level of trust by revealing such details as Gov. Palin coming to greet them in a towel, and having this make the news pages.
   Even the supposed hatred by Sen. Clinton’s campaigners for Sen. Obama stayed relatively under the radar, either by a cooperative liberal media or by a sense of loyalty to the Democratic Party.
   We’re hearing news of the Governor’s tantrums and that the $150,000 shopping spree may have been more expensive than first thought.
   This is a personal attack on her that shows party workers who can’t maintain any sense of dignity and trust.
   Importantly, you do not see someone of the standing and decency of Sen. John McCain rubbish his running-mate.
   If this division has been inspired by higher-ups in the Republican Party, then Americans might be fortunate that this version of the GOP did not get into power on November 4.
   One may argue that it is our right to know, and maybe it is. But the pace of this so-called knowledge being disseminated points to a party that is acting out sour grapes and playing the blame game a little too soon, and I find it troubling.
   Every party says it will regroup after a loss. It is fair to note that the loss that the Republicans suffered was in fact very small, given how they were outspent by the Democrats to such a degree. At this stage, I do not think there will be much re-evaluation of where it will lead, because I am not sure if the Party itself realizes where it wishes to head. It may need to rebrand much later, but for now, it hasn’t been able to protect its own from this onslaught—and may well have caused it.