It’s official: Rupert Murdoch is launching a new business channel that will be “more business friendly” than its competitors, namely CNBC.
As if CNBC (owned by General Electric) isn’t business friendly enough. Every night Lawrence Kudlow hawks the latest supply side argument and grotesque piece of corporate welfare. Recently Maria Bartiromo, the so-called “Money Honey,” came under fire after it was disclosed that she hitched rides on Citigroup jets and did promotional appearances for the company. The network, with its omnipresent stock ticker, resembles a never-ending pep rally for Wall Street.
Fox Business Channel wants to do one better. Forget Enron, Worldcom, Goldman Sachs’s bonuses or Exxon Mobil’s earnings, now that Democrats are in charge of Congress corporate America needs to be cheered up. The new channel will be led by Roger Ailes, the Fox News mastermind who taught Karl Rove everything he needed to know.
There used to be a time, back in the day, when great muckraking reporters like my colleague Bill Greider dominated the business pages. Hard-hitting investigative stories were standard fare. Those days are over at most newspapers and almost completely nonexistent on TV. Murdoch can once again rejoice.
