Politics: Behind Closed Doors at the FCC...
Omitted from much of the coverage of Michael Powell's one-man crusade to ensure that independent media is a thing of the past is one factor that may have the most sway in the mind of the FCC Chairman: His long, fulfilling and ongoing intimate relationship with News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch.
"Mr Murdoch and I have been close friends since I met him while he was touring the country and visited the Georgetown University Law Center, where I was studying," Powell confirmed this morning in an interview that did not occur. "But we became lovers while I was chief of staff at the Justice Department's anti-trust division."
"We joke that our trust is built on a foundation of anti-trust," Powell said, smiling, clearly in love.
Murdoch and Powell carried on an illicit affair: Powell has two young boys with his "wife" Jane, and Murdoch has maintained several relationships with Asian women, all of whom think he is "weird."
Powell and Murdoch were kindred spirits, often lounging together naked in one of Murdoch's Australian beachside mansions and discussing how critical it is for competing television stations to be owned by the same massive corporation.
"More than anything, Rupert and I sought each other's warm embrace and insightful counsel on media consolidation. Together, we realized that as FCC chair, I alone hold in my hands the power to ensure that Rupert's media empire -- and the media empires of other insanely rich and sexually agressive septugenarians -- is guaranteed media dominance for decades," Powell said in a late-night telephone call from a limosine in New York City.
Giggling, Powell then handed the phone off to a clearly drunken man with an Australian accent who identified himself as Murdoch. "Michael and I are in love, but more importantly, we are in agreement," the man slurred. "Unless I can own television, radio, newspapers --"
A moment of telephonic confusion, then Powell's voice: "--and baseball teams, don't forget baseball teams..."
Then the drunken Murdoch again. "Yes, unless I can own, ah, baseball teams and, careful, radio stations and television networks and newspapers all, oh God, mmmm, in the same marketplace, how can there be fair competition? See, the competition would come, oh yeah, from me owning everything, and other people competing to see how long they could oooh, oh, um, survive before they were swallowed ... swallow ... swallowed ... ah, up into my massive media juggernaut," the clearly relaxed Murdoch continued. "Isn't that right, Mikey, baby?"
A tinkle of champagne glasses was heard, and then the line went dead.
Powell and the FCC will vote next week on relaxing conditions which forbid single ownership of multiple media outlets in the same metropolitan area. Powell has said that he will vote to ease the rules, and that he is not bound by the input from millions of Americans none of whom apparently bring him the pleasure that Mr. Murdoch does.
As he really said in today's Washington Post, "You don't govern just by polls and surveys. We have to exercise difficult judgments and abide by the law. If all of our rulemaking was just a case of put them out and take a referendum, things would be a lot easier."
Omitted from much of the coverage of Michael Powell's one-man crusade to ensure that independent media is a thing of the past is one factor that may have the most sway in the mind of the FCC Chairman: His long, fulfilling and ongoing intimate relationship with News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch.
"Mr Murdoch and I have been close friends since I met him while he was touring the country and visited the Georgetown University Law Center, where I was studying," Powell confirmed this morning in an interview that did not occur. "But we became lovers while I was chief of staff at the Justice Department's anti-trust division."
"We joke that our trust is built on a foundation of anti-trust," Powell said, smiling, clearly in love.
Murdoch and Powell carried on an illicit affair: Powell has two young boys with his "wife" Jane, and Murdoch has maintained several relationships with Asian women, all of whom think he is "weird."
Powell and Murdoch were kindred spirits, often lounging together naked in one of Murdoch's Australian beachside mansions and discussing how critical it is for competing television stations to be owned by the same massive corporation.
"More than anything, Rupert and I sought each other's warm embrace and insightful counsel on media consolidation. Together, we realized that as FCC chair, I alone hold in my hands the power to ensure that Rupert's media empire -- and the media empires of other insanely rich and sexually agressive septugenarians -- is guaranteed media dominance for decades," Powell said in a late-night telephone call from a limosine in New York City.
Giggling, Powell then handed the phone off to a clearly drunken man with an Australian accent who identified himself as Murdoch. "Michael and I are in love, but more importantly, we are in agreement," the man slurred. "Unless I can own television, radio, newspapers --"
A moment of telephonic confusion, then Powell's voice: "--and baseball teams, don't forget baseball teams..."
Then the drunken Murdoch again. "Yes, unless I can own, ah, baseball teams and, careful, radio stations and television networks and newspapers all, oh God, mmmm, in the same marketplace, how can there be fair competition? See, the competition would come, oh yeah, from me owning everything, and other people competing to see how long they could oooh, oh, um, survive before they were swallowed ... swallow ... swallowed ... ah, up into my massive media juggernaut," the clearly relaxed Murdoch continued. "Isn't that right, Mikey, baby?"
A tinkle of champagne glasses was heard, and then the line went dead.
Powell and the FCC will vote next week on relaxing conditions which forbid single ownership of multiple media outlets in the same metropolitan area. Powell has said that he will vote to ease the rules, and that he is not bound by the input from millions of Americans none of whom apparently bring him the pleasure that Mr. Murdoch does.
As he really said in today's Washington Post, "You don't govern just by polls and surveys. We have to exercise difficult judgments and abide by the law. If all of our rulemaking was just a case of put them out and take a referendum, things would be a lot easier."
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