Unsettled Christianity

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March 20th, 2012

Congress mandates that we subsidize Fox News

Fox News continues to lose viewers, but remains highly profitable. How can a network lose viewers, but increase profits? The answer is that Fox News demands the highest licensing fee from carriers in all of cable news. All subscribers pay an additional seventy eight cents a month to have Fox News carried on their system. This was an 11% increase in 2011 and one of the main reasons why Fox News can lose viewers, but set a record for profits.

Even if you never watch Fox News, as long as it is carried by your cable or satellite system, you are still adding to Rupert Murdoch’s fortune. If people really want to stop Fox News, they need to be pushing Congress to pass a la cart legislation that will allow viewers to pick and choose the networks that they want to pay for instead of being forced to subsidize channels that they can’t stand.

via Viewers Continue To Flee Fox News as Ratings Drop for a Second Straight Year.

So… wow…

Tags: Fox News Channel, Rupert Murdoch
Posted in Religion and Politics | 1 Comment »

December 11th, 2011

More reasons to support Fox News and News Corp

Image via CrunchBase

News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch threw his weight behind Congress’ attempt to restrict the Internet, personally lobbying leaders on Capitol Hill Wednesday for two measures that purport to combat piracy.

Murdoch’s media empire is among some 350 large corporations that have come out in favor of the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House, as well as theProtect IP Act in the Senate.

Both measures would require Internet operators to police activity online, and would mandate Internet giants like Google and AOL (the parent company of The Huffington Post and an opponent of the bills) and credit card companies to take down sites that have content deemed to be in violation of copyright rules. (here)

I don’t like posting much on Sunday, but this one needs to be I guess…

Tags: News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch
Posted in Religion and Politics | 2 Comments »

November 1st, 2011

Um, does it bother you that Rupert Murdoch own a lot of the Bible publishing market?

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

I enjoy HarperOne’s publishing, but as I have stated before, I am not a fan of Zondervan because of the bible thing. I don’t like bible publishers owned by the likes of Murdoch. Now, Thomas Nelson will join that group as well:

HarperCollins Publishers today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Thomas Nelson, Inc. for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition, which is expected to close by the end of the calendar year, is subject to regulatory clearances and other customary closing conditions.

Thomas Nelson is one of the leading trade publishers in the United States. The Company provides multiple forms of inspirational content including: books, Bibles, e-books, journals, audio, video, curriculum and digital applications available for download on “smart” electronic devices. It has published some of the bestselling books in the industry, including the current #1 bestseller Heaven Is For Real, and the books of many popular authors, such as Billy Graham, Max Lucado, and Dave Ramsey. Here.

Wow… I go to China…. and Rupert Murdoch owns over half of the bible-publishing market.

HarperCollins buys out religious publisher (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
HarperCollins Acquires Religious Book Publisher (mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com)
HarperCollins’ Acquisition Of Thomas Nelson Is An Investment In Digital (paidcontent.org)

Tags: HarperCollins, HarperOne, Rupert Murdoch, Thomas Nelson, zondervan
Posted in Religion and Politics | 4 Comments »

July 19th, 2011

Jonnie Marbles, #Pie Goes with #Hacking

So, Jonnie when to the market today and bought a pie. He threw the pie at Rupert Murdoch. And tweeted about it beforehand.

A protester attacked News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch with what appeared to be a plate of shaving cream at a British parliamentary committee hearing Tuesday, as lawmakers grilled Murdoch and his son James over a phone-hacking scandal that has swept Britain.

Of course, I tend to think like this person:

U might think its clever what youve done buts its taken heat off Murdoch. You’re a moron and deserve to be charged

Meet ‘Jonnie Marbles,’ The Guy Who Just ATTACKED Rupert Murdoch (businessinsider.com)
RUPERT MURDOCH ATTACKED: Wife Wendi Takes Down Attacker!! (VIDEO) (businessinsider.com)
Murdoch hit with apparent foam pie at hearing (cbsnews.com)

Tags: Jonnie Marbles, News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch
Posted in Religion and Politics | 5 Comments »

July 15th, 2011

Murdoch and Zondervan, Scripture and Empire

I have written about this before, noting that unlike Thomas Nelson and Tyndale, Zondervan is owned by News Corp.

Now, with the breaking news that News Corp’s British unit has been found to have broken numerous laws and with the prospect that it may have happened in the States, I think it is time to re-examine the issue of Zondervan and Christian support of that publishing unit.

Most people know now that Rupert Murdoch presides over the News Corp media empire, and that he is fighting for his reputation after being forced to sink his scandal-laiden British newspaper News of the World, the most widely read English tabloid in the world. But few people know that Murdoch also owns Zondervan, the world’s largest publisher of Bibles. For 23 years, the News Corp family has included the leading seller of the best-selling book in history.

I know many Christians see the Bible’s publishing stature as validation of their chosen faith, but a savvy entrepreneur could simply see it as a business opportunity. Or perhaps the 80-year-old Murdoch, like any shrewd businessman, wanted diverse investments – a diversity that in his case ranged from a cleavage-saturated tabloid that ran headlines like, “F1 Boss Has Sick Nazi Orgy With 5 Hookers” to a publisher that offers Little Lamb’s Storybook Bible.

Will Braun: Rupert Murdoch: Bible Mogul.

I’m not sure today how I feel about this today. I think about HarperOne which is not expressly religious but has published Rob Bell and N.T. Wright and I am not so much up in arms about that as I am about Zondervan which publishes the NIV and the NASB.

Martin Bashir To Chris Matthews: Rupert Murdoch’s Empire Is Now ‘Like The Berlin Wall’ Falling Down (mediaite.com)
Is Rick Warren still Rupert Murdoch’s pastor? (gentlewisdom.org.uk)
Now the FBI Is Investigating Murdoch’s News Corp. (slog.thestranger.com)
Some Notes on Rupert Murdoch and Religion (barthsnotes.wordpress.com)

Tags: HarperCollins, News Corporation, News of the World, Rupert Murdoch, zondervan
Posted in Religion and Politics | 24 Comments »

July 11th, 2011

Maybe if Rupert Murdoch was a Methodist, we wouldn’t have Fox News

Insignia of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of...

Image via Wikipedia

Instead, Rick Warren claims him, his wife is a Catholic, and he is a Papal Knight of the Order of St. Gregory. Yet, he says,

Asked if there is any truth to recent press describing his newfound piety, Murdoch replies: “No. They say I’m a born again Christian and a Catholic convert and so on. I’m certainly a practicing Christian, I go to church quite a bit but not every Sunday and I tend to go to Catholic church — because my wife is Catholic, I have not formally converted. And I get increasingly disenchanted with the C of E or Episcopalians as they call themselves here. But no, I’m not intensely religious as I’m sometimes described.” Interviewed in 1992. Nicholas Coleridge, Paper Tigers (1993), p. 487.

Granted, Bush and Limbaugh are both Methodists, but…

Also, check out this post.

Tags: fox news, News Corporation, News of the World, Rupert Murdoch
Posted in Religion and Politics | 4 Comments »

July 7th, 2011

U.K. tabloid News of the World shutting down – Will Fox News Follow?

Image via Wikipedia

For the background see here which compares Murdoch and what is going on with the hacking of a dead girl’s phone (among others), the British Parliament and the such to the fall of Richard M. Nixon. Then, on to the good news:

Media conglomerate News International said Thursday it is shutting down the News of the World tabloid, the newspaper at the center of a British phone-hacking scandal.

James Murdoch, who heads the newspaper’s European operations, said the 168-year-old newspaper will publish its last edition Sunday. The scandal has cost the paper prestige and prompted dozens of companies to pull their ads. James Murdoch is the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

I say good because Murdoch is a ruthless sort fellow, in my opinion, and it seems that this is not the extent of the crimes. You don’t shut a newspaper down because they hacked one cell phone.

The News of the World (adamcollyer.wordpress.com)
Murdoch: Phone hacking ‘deplorable’ (mirror.co.uk)

Tags: James Murdoch, News Corporation, News of the World, Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch
Posted in Religion and Politics | 3 Comments »

February 5th, 2011

Glenn Beck to be Raptured Soon

I almost said rupture, but….

…Bill Kristol sticking with the demonstrators and calling out free-range lunatic Glenn Beck, for his hilarious commie-muslim caliphate delusions. This is not unimportant. Kristol lies very close to the throbbing heart of the Fox News sensibility. And I’ve heard, from more than a couple of conservative sources, that prominent Republicans have approached Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes about the potential embarrassment that the paranoid-messianic rodeo clown may bring upon their brand. The speculation is that Beck is on thin ice. His ratings are dropping, too–which, in the end, is a good part of what this is all about. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a mirror-Olbermann situation soon.

Glenn Beck - Prophet? Yoda? Vagrant?

via How Long, Glenn Beck, How Long? – Swampland – TIME.com.

And, once you follow the line of links out…. (here) my point from earlier literally begs the question…

And when that happens… what will the pseudo-civil religionistas do then? What happens when Beck actually, on air declares himself the Messiah? He has already said that he is carrying messages from God and the such – and people believe him – but what if he goes the next step. Or, for my Mormon friends, if he declares himself The Prophet?