WAR!

Tails of the Gun

Why Rush survived pressure onadvertisers-- while O’Reilly didn’t  by William A. Jacobson Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News career now swims with the fishes. The conventional wisdom is that after the NY Times exposed a history of sexual harassment  settlements, and two new accusers came forward, advertisers “fled” the show, forcing the hand of News Corp and the Murdochs. That conventional wisdom is only partially correct — advertisers didn’t flee, they were chased away by the same organized effort as was used against Glenn Beck once upon a time, and Rush Limbaugh in 2012. Longtime readers will recall my extensive and groundbreaking research into the StopRush operation just after Limbaugh’s comments about Sandra Fluke in 2012, for which he apologized. I proved then that the operation — at least initially — was a Media Matters astroturfed assault on Limbaugh’s advertiser base, based on a pre-existing plan by Angelo Carusone, then Director of Online Strategy for Media Matters (and now President). Supposedly independent groups coordinated their efforts with Media Matters, and then tried to cover it up. My research led Limbaugh to activate his personal Twitter account to spread the results of my research. It also earned me threats to interfere in my employment, although those threats never materialized as far as I know. I continued to follow the main group, as it targeted advertisers and eventually imploded from infighting and infiltration. The efforts largely failed at causing any meaningful damage to Limbaugh. Nonetheless, a small cadre of operatives, who often used multiple proxy accounts to multiply their effect, continued to plug away at harassing Limbaugh advertisers over a variety of issues. That eventually led Limbaugh, through a spokesman, to push back against the operatives, Limbaugh outs #StopRush Twitter operatives. [FULL] SELECTED  COMMENTS If the Progressive Fascists targeted O’Reilly on the basis that he was Conservative, we’ve already won. If they can’t even identify the appropriate target, they can’t do anything but flail. And that’s a good thing. O’Reilly worked for Fox News and he was viewed by the Left as a prominent, conservative-leaning commentator, so, his scalp was deemed to be a valuable one. That’s the essence of the matter. Clearly O’Reilly wasn’t a conservative and Fox News has been inching to the left for a long time, but to the left, Fox is THE “mouthpiece” of conservatism. It’s an example of appearance over substance. The larger issue is that Soros’ interests and puppets cannot lay a glove on Trump, so they’re going after his allies- everywhere, in every medium. First, it was Ailes, now it’s O’Reilly- with the Murdoch sons in charge, they have a natural ally. More than anything, they want to take out Fox- and will succeed, if the Murdoch boys are too stupid to see what’s going on. Not all great companies can survive when the next generation, who have inherited their jobs, takes over. James and Lachlan will not suffer financially when they’ve destroyed the legacy that their father has built- and, ultimately, they won’t care. It was Rupert Murdoch’s call, ultimately, although his sons did help to convince him to hire the Paul, Weiss, law firm that investigated first Ailes and now O’Reilly. Murdoch’s not going to be swayed by liberal boycotts or a few advertisers, in my opinion, he was looking at the future of the company. Would you want your wife or daughter working for Fox News in that kind of environment? IMO, O’Reilly was sacrificed only because the Murdock kids are weak and are clearly ready and willing to stop pretending that Fox is different than ABC, NBC, CBS or CNN. They want to jettison their viewers and go mainstream. They all run in the same circles and only the uber-left thinks Fox is conservative. During the last election, they clearly showed themselves to be clueless anti-Trump water carriers of NYC and DC culture. O’Reilly will do ok. I hate the way he was taken down… and no doubt, more scalps to come.