Rupert Murdoch

New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza caused a bit of a stir in the conservative media world today in a report he filed for the New Yorker about the ongoing debate in the U.S. Senate over an immigration bill that is currently opposed by many conservatives. According to the piece, the so-called Gang of Eight see the role of Florida Republican Marco Rubio as being to “neutralize” conservative talk radio and to get opinion hosts on Fox News Channel to either talk up the legislation or at least not oppose it.

In their view, Rubio, who was initially touted by many conservatives nationally as their great hope even though he was regarded far more skeptically by Florida conservatives, has succeeded in his assignment.

The latest cover of Bloomberg Businessweek promotes this theme: "You Old Fox: How Rupert Murdoch Survived -- And Profited From -- News Corp.'s Brush With Death." Felix Gillette's cover story is titled "The Escape Artist."

Gillette reported that Murdoch was "supposed to be finished," but  today, "he survives at the helm of a global entertainment and publishing company that, far from being diminished, has soared in value," much to the dismay of the Left:

The Los Angeles Times is up for sale, and there are super-wealthy conservative bidders. Get out the popcorn and watch the liberals squeal. The hilarious kickoff came when two leftist collectives – the Daily Kos website and the California-based Courage Campaign Institute – set out to buy an ad in the the L.A. Times to protest the Koch brothers pondering a bid.

I kid you not, the ad began: “WE NEED NEWS, NOT MORE SPIN.” This would assume that today’s Los Angeles Times  – which just endorsed Obama’s re-election –  is an oasis of objectivity in a desert of media bias. They expressed outrage when the Times wouldn't publish the ad -- but then they did.

Chris Matthews on Sunday actually joked about whether or not it was good that media mogul Rupert Murdoch is still going strong despite being in his 80s.

Not surprisingly, the panelists on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show also thought this was a hoot (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Piers Morgan got support from a surprising source Saturday.

Commenting on Twitter, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch said, "Let's have petition to keep Piers Morgan in U.S. We need him, as does CNN."

In August, Rupert Murdoch’s FX picked up a Cold War series set in the 1980s titled “The Americans.” Liberals might have braced themselves for the worst. It sounded like some kind of Chuck Norris-style “jingoistic” homage to freedom-loving intelligence agents. But this is Hollywood, so the show instead focuses on KGB spies who speak perfect English, working to destroy Reagan-era America, which is not altogether a bad thing to people in Hollywood.

Joe Weisberg, who worked for more than three years at the CIA, first wrote a script about two  CIA case officers stationed in Bulgaria. Fox bought that script, too...but that project was deep-sixed. Boring. But exploring the daily joys and sorrows of undercover Soviet agents, that just thrills the Hollywood Left. Some things never change.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter Saturday to criticize the press's reporting of hostilities in Israel.

One tweet in particular raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle:

Mark Thompson, a former director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation, began his new job Monday as president and CEO of The New York Times. The lack of embarrassment was remarkable. Thompson claimed he was the worst kind of ignorant buffoon, knowing nothing about the massive sex-abuse scandal – and then its censorship – that’s rocking the BBC.

Scotland Yard has been conducting a criminal investigation into allegations of child sex abuse by the late disc jockey and TV personality Jimmy Savile over six decades, describing him as a "predatory sex offender.” In mid-October, the metropolitian police stated they were pursuing over 400 lines of inquiry based on the testimony of 300 potential victims. Chris Patten, the head of the BBC’s government body called it “this great tsunami of filth.” BBC’s “Newsnight” was about to broadcast an expose last December – but BBC bosses spiked it, and incredibly, aired Christmas tributes to Savile instead.

While some sectors of the American economy have changed allegiances this presidential cycle in terms of their donations to the major political parties, one industry that hasn't changed its allegiances is media.

That probably doesn't come as a surprise to readers of this site but the numbers are still interesting nonetheless: