CBS prez formerly VP at Fox News. Also Frank Luntz hired as analyst. Too many Fox people.

[madfloridian]

I had wondered what was going on at CBS. 60 minutes has become untrustworthy, and Republican strategist Frank Luntz is working for both Fox and CBS. More about Luntz below.

From Brad Blog:

The Fox 'News-ification of CBS News and 60 Minutes

The President of CBS News is David Rhodes. He was hired in February 2011. He was formerly the Vice President of News at Fox "News".

Again, the current President of CBS News was formerly the VP of News at Fox "News".

According to his bio posted at CBS: "Rhodes began his career as a Production Assistant at the newly-launched Fox News Channel in 1996, where he later became Vice President of News. At the network he managed coverage of three presidential elections, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, hurricanes including Katrina, and was the channel's Assignment Manager on the news desk the morning of September 11, 2001."

From Media Matters in September 2013:

CBS Hires Frank Luntz, The Man Who Reportedly Shepherded The Plan To Defeat Obama

Luntz's hiring came a few months after New York Times Magazine contributor Robert Draper reported that Luntz orchestrated a "2009 meeting where prominent Republicans formulated a plan to win back Congress and the White House."

The dinner lasted nearly four hours. They parted company almost giddily. The Republicans had agreed on a way forward:

Go after Geithner. (And indeed Kyl did, the next day: "Would you answer my question rather than dancing around it - please?&quot

Show united and unyielding opposition to the president's economic policies. (Eight days later, Minority Whip Cantor would hold the House Republicans to a unanimous No against Obama's economic stimulus plan.)

Begin attacking vulnerable Democrats on the airwaves. (The first National Republican Congressional Committee attack ads would run in less than two months.)

Win the spear point of the House in 2010. Jab Obama relentlessly in 2011. Win the White House and the Senate in 2012.

It's really hard to doubt that Luntz has done a great job of teaching Republicans how to use catch phrases and slogans, teaching them to use terminology that twisted the meaning of issues. Our side needed someone like him at times so we would go on the offense in language instead of playing defense all the time.

In an article from yesterday in The Atlantic some of the things came out that Republicans truly believe about caring for the poor and needy and for seniors. Sounds like Luntz had a bad reaction to Romney's loss. Took it very personally. But his words about things like safety nets are chilling to me. It is what many conservatives and some Democrats truly believe.

The Agony of Frank Luntz

And yet, over the hour and a half I spend talking with him—the first time he has spoken publicly about his current state of mind—it's hard to grasp what the crisis is about. Luntz hasn't renounced his conservative worldview. His belief in unfettered capitalism and individual self-reliance appears stronger than ever. He hasn't become disillusioned with his very profitable career or his nomadic, solitary lifestyle. His complaints—that America is too divided, President Obama too partisan, and the country in the grip of an entitlement mentality that is out of control—seem pretty run-of-the-mill. But his anguish is too deeply felt not to be real. Frank Luntz is having some kind of crisis. I just can't quite get my head around it.

His side had lost. Mitt Romney had, in his view, squandered a good chance at victory with a strategically idiotic campaign. ("I didn't work on the campaign. It just sucked, as a professional. And it killed me because I realized on Election Day that there's nothing I can do about it.&quot But Luntz's side had lost elections before. His dejection was deeper: It was, he says, about why the election was lost. "I spend more time with voters than anybody else," Luntz says. "I do more focus groups than anybody else. I do more dial sessions than anybody else. I don't know shit about anything, with the exception of what the American people think.

He seems to be fearful that he is wrong about what the people overall truly believe. I surely hope he is right. This paragraph expresses his Ayn Rand type of philosophy.

But what if the Real People are wrong? That is the possibility Luntz now grapples with. What if the things people want to hear from their leaders are ideas that would lead the country down a dangerous road?

"You should not expect a handout," he tells me. "You should not even expect a safety net. When my house burns down, I should not go to the government to rebuild it. I should have the savings, and if I don't, my neighbors should pitch in for me, because I would do that for them." The entitlement he now hears from the focus groups he convenes amounts, in his view, to a permanent poisoning of the electorate—one that cannot be undone. "We have now created a sense of dependency and a sense of entitlement that is so great that you had, on the day that he was elected, women thinking that Obama was going to pay their mortgage payment, and that's why they voted for him," he says. "And that, to me, is the end of what made this country so great."

That is at least two people from Fox News they have hired at CBS in the last few years. I am so disgusted that CBS hired them. I really wish they had not.

[shenmue]

1. I hate Frank Luntz

[madfloridian]

2. He surely had the "school choice" stuff nailed. I despise how he did that.

Of course we do use the words "school choice", but his terminology really makes it sound like the parents are left out of the whole thing. Makes them forget the importance of neighborhood schools and what they do for a community. Now that is sad.

Are the words "school choice" public code words for the movement to privatize public education?

13. School Choice - Parental Choice/Equal Opportunity in Education

NEVER SAY: School Choice
INSTEAD SAY: Parental Choice/Equal Opportunity in Education

Americans are still evenly split over whether they support "school choice" in America’s schools. But they are heavily in favor of "giving parents the right to choose the schools that are right for their children," and there is almost universal support for "equal opportunity in education." So frame the issue right and you get the support you need.

Luntz 2006: 14 Words Never to Use

A total play on the emotions of parents...like they are being left out of the equation.

The closing of neighborhood schools hits communities hard.

[billhicks76]

16. The neighbors will pitch in?

What planet does this guy live on?

[progressoid]

3. See how liberal the media is!

[madfloridian]

4. Oh yeah! I hate seeing CBS do this though.

We are bound to see these views reflected in their coverage. We already have.

[cprise]

18. Every TV network is now far-right on the economy

MSNBC is just a straggler.

And as far as I can tell, most of the CBS prime time shows have right-wing sensibilities these days.

[lpbk2713]

5. Now all the pieces fit together.

Now it all seems perfectly clear that CBS and 60 Minutes has sold out.

This would not have happened if Don Hewitt and Mike Wallace were still around.

[madfloridian]

13. Agree.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. I guess they felt there was a market for people who freaked over a black president.

[rhett o rick]

7. Is it too early to call it a conspiracy? nm

[Historic NY]

8. Once the most trust name in news, is now becoming the most untrusted..

[SoapBox]

9. I can hear that snark and slant on their

radio traffic channel (1070AM) in Los Angeles...everyday, every time they report on the ACA, it's "Obamacare" but with sarcasm and snark.

[The Wizard]

10. exploiting the ignorant

Is what Luntz does. His success is contingent on fear and misunderstanding.

[lonestarnot]

11. I wonder how much they are going to fuck with local broadcasts.

[billhicks76]

17. They already have

Where there are 3 local news stations one company owns at least two and the parrot mostly national news stories and entertainment fluff squeezing out ALL local investigative journalism and even simple reporting of local stories.

[lonestarnot]

20. They've managed to report on corruption of local pugs here. I guess that will be shut down.

[billhicks76]

21. They used to here but...

...the local stations are now owned by ultra-conservative Sinclair Broadcasting which has a vested interest in ignoring local stories to maintain the illusion of a centralized consensus reality viewpoint that is uniform but not real until they make it that way. It's all about the national narrative...one of the Koch brothers variety. Even the websites are now identical. Why even have two stations run by the same people. They have gutted the journalist and photographer ranks and manage it like some kind of outsourced outfit if non-information misfits.

[madfloridian]

22. Ah, Sinclair. I remember Dean called them out in 2004. No one listened then.

http://www.sitnews.us/HowardDean/101604_dean.html

October 16, 2004
Saturday


Last week, communications giant Sinclair Broadcasting announced that they would require all 62 of their television affiliates to pre-empt regularly scheduled programs and air a film that casts Sen. John Kerry in a very unfavorable and false light. Many of these stations, affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC and UPN, are in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan. This essentially becomes free advertising for the Bush-Cheney campaign in some very important and influential states during this election season.

This is not the first time Sinclair Broadcasting stations were required to do something that advanced the right-wing agenda. Last spring, Sinclair refused to allow any of its ABC affiliates to carry a Nightline episode that honored soldiers who had been killed in Iraq. The episode was a way to memorialize and remember the soldiers that gave their lives fighting for our country. But at the time, the executives at Sinclair Broadcasting unilaterally decided that the program "appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq".

....Federal Communications Commissioner Michael J. Copps recently said, "This is an abuse of the public trust. And it is proof positive of media consolidation run amok when one owner can use the public airwaves to blanket the country with its political ideology -- whether liberal or conservative. . . .Sinclair and the FCC are taking us down a dangerous road."

....Since the public owns the airways, Sinclair Broadcasting and other big corporations ought to be required to act in a way which supports democracy, not attacks it. Sinclair Broadcasting has violated the fundamental responsibilities they are accountable for in a democratic society. If the president will not do his job to rein in corporate power, we will have to stand up for American democracy ourselves.

[lonestarnot]

39. So when are we the people going to pitch in and buy our own?

[Botany]

12. @ one time CBS was about the news

a very good read

[lofty1]

14. Frank Luntz is so full of himself

that he can not distinguish between his own spin and how people really think. In his mind, he hears a sense of entitlement when what is really being expressed is the people's desire for justice.

[underpants]

27. Spot on - he manipulates to end where he wants to

At least that was where he started. Now he just goes through the steps to end with a product to sell to his clients. What Luntz won't see is that the Republican product is being dicks - tough on crime, tight on the money. W Bush's disastrous Presidency threw all of that out the window. Their press has ignored W and blurred the line, probably at Luntz and Ailes direction, but it isn't working. People remember. The press is now believing their own, formerly, inside joke.

[mountain grammy]

33. Exactly! Well said, and welcome to DU.

[spanone]

15. sad that news reporting is no longer reliable....sad

dangerous

[mountain grammy]

19. CBS Sunday Morning is getting the same tinge as 60 Minutes

Soon, I'll no longer watch that one either.

I despise Frank Luntz because he despises me: a middle class American who has been the benefactor of government programs, like most Americans, too many of whom don't want to admit it. The fact is, Luntz thinks most Americans are takers, and the very people he disparages love him.

[underpants]

28. Haven't watched in years but I used to love that show

Sunday morning with a pot of coffee, the Sunday paper, and CBS Sunday Morning on on the background.

[mountain grammy]

30. I did too, but lately, not so much.

[a kennedy]

23. Well, there you have it......the exact reason CBS has fallen so far into the gutter....

I just don't watch any "news" type shows on CBS at all.

[Enthusiast]

24. K&R! I am 100% done with CBS.

Urge your friends and family to boycott CBS!

[jsr]

25. +1

[Gothmog]

26. I will no longer watch CBS News and Sixty Minutes

CBS wants to be clone of Fox News and that is going to be a bad decision. Fox News has the oldest viewer population

[madfloridian]

29. Luntz has contracts with both Fox News and CBS. Unusual.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-agony-of-frank-luntz/282766/

Luntz is famous not just on television—he has talking-head contracts with both CBS and Fox News, a rare arrangement—but among the political and business elite. When he walks into the Capitol Hill Club, he is beset by Republican members of Congress wanting to talk to him and soak up his aura of celebrity. He boasts that he speaks to at least one Fortune 500 CEO every day. Yet, in his telling, he is still the little guy, the outsider, the schlub—half anxious, half awed by the trappings of power. He tells of being summoned for a conversation with Bill Clinton and being unable to enjoy the honor of the occasion because of the panic he felt at the president's vise grip on his shoulder. "This is Bill fucking Clinton, asking me to deliver a message to the Senate majority leader, and I'm about to faint," he recalls, ruefully. "Because I understand the significance of this conversation, and I am not worthy of it."

[underpants]

34. Well yeah, of course, I mean he is made for modern TV news

[madfloridian]

36. He's the personification of the media facade of talking and saying nothing important at all.

I seldom watch any news or talk shows anymore. Maybe The Ed Show or Rachel at times, but they tire me now. Even the good ones have to kow-tow to the station's ownership. It is like watching something false and dishonest.

[otohara]

31. What About Corporate Handouts Frank?

so easy to go after women - what a douchebag.

[mountain grammy]

32. Thank you, madfloridian, for this very important thread.

first I've heard of this Sinclair bunch, and I think I'm informed.. HA!
Used to be, I could watch Walter Cronkite and read two newspapers every day, and TIME once a week, and have a halfway decent idea of what was going on in the world. Money has silenced the truth.

[madfloridian]

37. Yes, money has silenced the truth.

And looks like most networks are money hungry.

[Mike Nelson]

35. I do have one positive thing to say about Luntz...

... he has better hair he did a decade ago. It once looked like an Elton John throwaway squirrel.
... it's not as good as Joe Scarborough's upgrade, but it does look better.

[madfloridian]

38. lol

[BradBlog]

40. Don't forget Major Garrett

Also hired by CBS away from Fox "News".

[madfloridian]

41. I had forgotten that.

Thanks for the reminder. And thanks for all your good work.