Chuck Todd: "Why is what TMZ does legal but what Rupert Murdoch does illegal."

[ProfessionalLeftist]

Same question I've been asking. Much of US media is as corrupt and has been for a long time. All of it - here and across the pond.

It is NOT true that the same complicity between big business, gov't and media doesn't exist here - because they're all the same in the US. Big business owns all the media - and big business controls the gov't.

AND - the revolving door between big business, their lobbyists & gov't is ever wider and ever spinning in the US.

I've been told that TMZ has paid LA police for "inside" info as well as med staff at UCLA. It's one thing for reps of the police dept or the medical community to give info to the media/tabloids - but when they're getting money 'under the table' to provide info that otherwise would not be made available - it's the same crap that some of Murdoch's outfit does only in the US, corporations - and especially the media - are allowed to act with utter impunity no matter what they do.

Is paying $75,000 cash to a celebrity's doctor or assistant to get them to "dish dirt" (sensational stories, true or not) to a tabloid (which then twists and embellishes them further) ethical - even when it - in the short term or over extended periods of time - helps lead to that celebrities death?

Why would they pay that kind of money? Oh they get it back tenfold in advertising dollars. The more website traffic, the more viewers and listeners they get the more advertising they can sell - and those Breitbart-ized, Nancy Disgraced, sexed up "stories" ('cause they sure are not the truth) - SELL - they get viewers/traffic because people love trash media.

And all of the US media does this. Or they at least take advantage of it. I've seen trash from the front page of TMZ or the National Enquirer get copied and pasted OVERNIGHT - verbatim right onto the front pages or feature stories of CNN, NYTimes, and of course Fox "News". No research. No fact-checking. NOTHING. Just copy/paste.

That ain't news. It's media infected with tabloid "journalism" - medialoids. That's what 99% of our media is these days.

Oh, but it's "legal". That doesn't make it RIGHT.

The thing is, Europe has the sense to DO something about it. The US does not.

Thus I think it's a far stretch to even imagine that Fox "News", much less the equally trashy likes of TMZ will ever be blissfully gone from our media landscape so we can get back to sensible, useful news that is clearly delineated from tabloid trash like it used to be. It used to be that tabloids were avoidable. When you wanted news, you simply didn't look at tabloid pubs. But NOW - almost ALL of the media is tabloid - medialoids - as I just described. You can't avoid it, hardly.

If it's corporate - it's medialoid with ONE objective. That objective is NOT to inform the public. And that objective is NOT to find facts or to research the truth. The ONE objective the corporate-owned medialoids have is PROFIT. That's it. Money comes in the room. Truth goes right out the window.

It's a HUGE problem in all our media. Fox "News" is just one of the worst examples of it. But really, it's everywhere. And it has cost lives and ruined our country - and I don't feel that is at all an overstatement.


http://www.mediaite.com/tv/chuck-todd-why-is-what-tmz-does-legal-but-what-rupert-murdoch-does-illegal/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+mediaite/ClHj+%28Mediaite%29

[midnight]

1. Can you imagine a nurse telling a patients medical info... to the wrong person?

"I've been told that TMZ has paid LA police for "inside" info as well as med staff at UCLA. It's one thing for reps of the police dept or the medical community to give info to the media/tabloids - but when they're getting money 'under the table' to provide info that otherwise would not be made available - it's the same crap that some of Murdoch's outfit does only in the US, corporations - and especially the media - are allowed to act with utter impunity no matter what they do."


Media play with the criminals and are rewarded...

[ProfessionalLeftist]

5. Yes. That's the problem. Corruption is rampant in the media and not just in the UK. n/t

[firehorse]

2. Did TMZ hack phones and delete messages on the hacked phones...

giving parents of a dead girl hope that their daughter is still alive?

Did TMZ hack political leaders phones and police phones, thus corrupting evidence in cases?

[ProfessionalLeftist]

6. Maybe it's time to find out. n/t

[monmouth]

3. HA! I often wondered how the cops and cameras always conveniently

showed up when some schlub was getting a DUI or perp walk. Chuck has a point.

[hlthe2b]

4. What part about illegal wiretapping or Hacking is so difficult for the Toad to understand?

Not to mention bribery, blackmail and extortion of high level governmental officials...

I remember after the Senior "potato head"'s unfortunate demise, when NBC was deciding between Gregory and the Toad for MTP replacement. While I think they are both horrible choices--with a predilection to be smarmy RW ass-kissers, I have always thought Gregory was reasonably intelligent. The Toad... not so much. Only goes to show....

[ProfessionalLeftist]

7. I'd call giving $75,000 for "dirt" on a celebrity bribery - and that goes on here

all the time.

[hlthe2b]

16. TMZ has never tried to claim the mantel of journalism...

they are sleaze and recognized as such. Extortion and blackmail of a public official in a position to impact policy decisions--is a bit different, no matter how repulsive TMZ's practices. Surely you must see some difference, at least legally....:shrug:

If there is evidence that TMZ is tapping/hacking into phones, engaged in extortion and blackmail and similar, then Mr. Toad needs to present that evidence, rather than just running his mouth off. And, then, yes, TMZ's staff should be prosecuted and the whole sleazy outfit shut down. But, until that evidence is produced, this equivocation and false comparison he is engaged in, is just disingenuous (at the least).

[ProfessionalLeftist]

19. But other sites that copy/paste their trash...DO. And NOTW was a tabloid just like TMZ

That's one of my points: It's all mixed together. There is no "mantel of journalism" - all the media is a mishmosh of tabloid/infotainment. CNN for instance probably considers itself "news" - but it copy/pastes stories from tabloids for its pages. Then, it becomes medialoid.

[hlthe2b]

20. Where is your evidence that TMZ or others commit extortion, blackmail

and engage in illegal wiretaps/hacking? You make this assertion. Based on what?

Bribery of ordinary citizens for information is not illegal--in most instances. Bribery of public officals generally IS. If they have engaged in that, I truly hope they are exposed and prosecuted/closed down.

[ejpoeta]

23. it's only illegal if the government isn't condoning it. now that they have some hack lawyer

who invents some pretzel argument to make it seem as if it is legal they can pretend it is so all's well. and they have everyone in on it here in the good old USofA where we are 'free'....

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. what is a TMZ?

Is that a form of some demilitarized zone in Thailand?

[ProfessionalLeftist]

10. Trash Media Zone. n/t

[ProfessionalLeftist]

9. Bytheway I have no use for Toad or "Mediaite" - but I think the question asked

is one that needs to be thoroughly examined. We've all seen some horrendous practices from our own media and even worse goes on 'behind the scenes'. I just wish the crap would be exposed here, too.

[gratuitous]

No kidding, Chuck

And isn't it disgusting the way the Washington Insiders, movers and shakers all, dutifully troop over the TMZ to appear on their programs and offer learned discourse on the happenings in government? Then they all pretend it's totally above-board and that TMZ is a legitimate news outlet.

Waitasecond . . .

[Cleita]

11. Maybe what TMZ does IS illegal. They just haven't

been brought to justice like Murdoch apparently will be. I agree that most of our press and mainstream journalism has become corrupt and unethical. Sometimes all it takes is targeting one offender that operates in murky gray areas or blatantly outside the law that sends a message to the rest of the industry to clean up their act before they start falling like dominoes to the same legal system. Let's hope this is a beginning to cleaning up the whole lot of them.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

17. Yea - they just haven't gotten caught yet.

If what I'm hearing from multiple people really goes on with our media - that is definitely the case. It's as corrupt but it hasn't yet been exposed.

[Uncle Joe]

33. That's what they were saying about Nixon for several years after his resignation,

"Nixon didn't do anything different than other politicians, he just got caught."

This was used to help "rehabilitate Tricky Dick's image," it worked well enough so that less than a decade after the GOP brand was trashed, Reagan came to power, which in turn led to the environment that fostered the likes of Murdoch's FOX "News" and their 24/7 sock-puppet show.

[Marr]

12. You can always count on guys like Chuck to come up with a bit of sophistry to

defend guys like Murdoch. That's why he's got the position, but I'll bet he doesn't even realize it.

[Enrique]

13. did Chuck Todd back it up?

specifics, please. What episodes, documented, please, compare between TMZ and for example the hacking of that dead girl's phone.

[truebrit71]

14. Is Chuckles angling for a job at Fux Spews now?

...or is this just further evidence that he's a partisan hack?

[The Wielding Truth]

15. I don't see an equality between the TMZ "celebrity diggers" and

the twisted use of ill gained information used to destroy an opponent of big business or anyone Murdoch sees as a threat. Murdoch has used his vast coverage of our media to undermine our democracy through false and misleading "news"for his own immediate gain.

To me that is the exact description of fraud.We should be protected from this nasty propaganda. TMZ does not represent itself as a fair and balanced distributor of fact.FOX posses as that and it is false.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

18. TMZ and other media outlets do it for their own immediate gain (advert sales)

and they don't care WHO or WHAT they destroy in the process. It's all fraud. And yes I agree we should be protected from nasty self-serving propaganda.

[The Wielding Truth]

21. TMZ is a gossip media. They don't pretend to be anything else.

That is the difference and TMZ doesn't seem to use the info they get to intentionally destroy.They show what they get and let it fall where it may but they don't seem to twist it.To me what Murdoch does by twisting and using what they gain illegally,that makes it fraud.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

28. But the "news" outlets that copy/paste their garbage does. n/t

[The Wielding Truth]

45. Yes. That is what makes it so wrong. News make an observation a fact.

Without conformation and injecting their not just slant but actual lies, it is presenting propaganda.

[Iggo]

22. 'I've been told that...'

I stopped reading right there.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

25. Turning a blind eye to an obviously corrupt media is certainly your choice.

When one cannot argue the message (s)he attacks the messenger.

[Iggo]

39. Back atcha.

:P

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. As far as we know they have not engaged in hacking and other practices

also TMZ goes after people who make their living in the PUBLIC EYE... not hacking the phones of a murdered teen...

ANd that is just the surface of the differences. If Chuckie and you don't understand the difference...

What chuckie is afraid is that since he makes his living in the public eye he is actually a target of TMZ... you, on the other hand, not really.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

27. So bribery for lies is OK with you? n/t

[Taverner]

40. He never said it was OK, just that one breaks a few laws, the other breaks a lot of laws

There is a difference

[ProfessionalLeftist]

29. And if a person is in the public eye, they do not deserve to NOT have their lives destroyed

with paid-for lies? Wow. Quite a set of ethics we have here eh?

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. It is not whether I agree with it... US Law actually makes a distinction

between those who make their lives in the public eye and those who don't. You can sue... for the most part, with a few exceptions, they can't.

Look it up... please.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

32. They can sue...but they'd lose.

Because our laws favor corruption in the media.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. no, they cannot... you can for things like making up stories

they can't... and there is plenty of PRECEDENT LAW.

You want to change that, (and to a point it should) you need to start lobbying congress... PERIOD.

That law goes back a LONG TIME... well before TMZ... it goes back to the hay day of the yellow journalism of the Hearst Papers... that is a LONG TIME.

[rucky]

26. Because the source is disclosing voluntarily. n/t

[ProfessionalLeftist]

31. When a celebrity was secretly filmed by a member of the media as (s)he arrived

to meet with police about a crime that had been committed and that film was subsequently sold to (for a huge sum of money) and published in the media, that was not disclosing voluntarily.

All these things are A-OK huh? Fine set of ethics we got here.

[rucky]

34. Thanks for the lecture, but it sounds like we agree.

Voluntary disclosure is where the line should be drawn. If you go any further than that, legit whistleblowers would lose protection.

[rucky]

35. btw, if they met in a public place, then it's fair game

anything a bystander could see or hear can be taped.

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Correct and that is standard US law

has been for a long time.

[TorchTheWitch]

46. filming a celebrity in public is not illegal

and should not be illegal. Celebrities don't get to have special rights of privacy that the rest of us don't get. EVERY celebrity knows that part of being a celebrity means that the public is going to take an interest in what they do in public. Filming the celebrity when they were in public arriving at the police station either secretly or obviously is perfectly legal and SHOULD be perfectly legal.

And yes, whoever shot the film has every right to be paid for their work in finding out about where and when the celebrity would be at a given public place and for shooting the film of the event. As long as they found out about where and when a celebrity would be in a certain public place in a legal way (which includes purchasing information from anyone voluntarily willing to sell it) or listening to a police scanner or word of mouth or sheer luck of course they should be paid for that work for whatever price someone is willing to pay.

Gossip journalism has ALWAYS involved purchasing information from those who have it and are voluntarily willing to sell it which is perfectly legal. Some people may find it morally wrong but it doesn't make it illegal. Gossip journalism has NEVER been ethical which is why it has always been considered tabloid gossip journalism beneath that of regular journalism where information isn't paid for, more than one source is used, and both sources and facts are checked out before going to press. Unfortunately, regular journalism in this country has lowered it's standards much closer to that of tabloid gossip journalism.

Celebrities have no room to complain that when in public they may be filmed and that film goes out to the public or that information about them from people who have it may get out to the public. Without that public information about them appearing in the press they wouldn't BE celebrities. Celebrities remain celebrities and can only garner their lofty salaries as long as the press is still interested in them and they know it more than anyone.

[uponit7771]

38. Chuck Todd proves he's not that smart...he should quit while he's ahead

[KurtNYC]

41. The focus should be on News Corp right now

If TMZ paid for medical info then that is illegal too.

btw, can't tell is that is all excerpt but if it is then it is 13 paragraphs and THAT's illegal.

[JackRiddler]

42. I'm just waiting for the inevitable (invalid) comparison to Wikileaks.

Not really.

[Wounded Bear]

43. Because maybe it's a false equivalency?

Just saying.

:shrug:

[gort]

44. TMZ exposes celebrities. Murdoch was invading the privacy of private and public citizens

Both are sleazy, but Chuckie better be careful about accusing TMZ of illegal activity.

The tabloidization of our media is what Murdoch has wrought on the world. I hope the son of a bitch dies seeing his empire crumble and his children in jail.