Now is the time when we juxtapose, Small Dead Animals-style:
When Fox News started out, it got a generally skeptical and unfriendly reception from the journalistic establishment. Even reporters, who generally view any news media organization as a good thing (not to mention a potential source of employment), were largely disapproving. But no one greeted Fox News with more pure vitriol than CNN founder Ted Turner.
“I look forward to crushing Rupert Murdoch like a bug,” Turner told the press. He compared Murdoch to Hitler, which would make Roger Ailes a reincarnation of Goebbels, and followed up with an explanation, quoted by the Los Angeles Times [in October of 1996]: “The late Führer, the first thing he did, like all dictators, was take over the press and use it to further his agenda. Basically, that is what Rupert Murdoch does with his media. . . .” The Nazi analogy was too much for the Anti-Defamation League, which rebuked Turner for trivializing the Holocaust. Turner apologized, but that didn’t prevent him from likening Murdoch to “the late Führer” a year later; or, in 2005, comparing the success of Fox News to the rise of Hitler.
— From Roger Ailes: Off Camera, by Zev Chafets.
Republican Teddy Turner, the son of media mogul Ted Turner, made news last month when he blamed his father’s liberalism on actress Jane Fonda.
He made more news Wednesday on NewsMax TV’s Steve Malzberg Show saying that CNN is “pretty much to the left” and that he has such a “hard time watching them” he mostly watches Fox (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary, relevant section begins at 7:40):
— “Ted Turner’s Son: CNN Is So Far Left I Mostly Watch Fox,” Noel Sheppard, Newsbusters, yesterday.
If you missed it on Tuesday, click here to listen to my interview with Chafets discussing his new book on Fox impresario Ailes.
Update: “Cable ‘News’ Network: CNN Devotes Multiple Segments to Mockery, Criticism of Conservatives.”
Rebuilding the badly tarnished CNN brand name; you’re doing it wrong.
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