Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, May 1, 2017

Jack Ma says that CEOs could be robots in the future, but they already are. Someone accuses your most-necessary employee of something bad and you instantly fire him. That’s quite robotic and that’s the trend in management, at least in the changing news industry.

Bill O’Reilly is gone, at least from television. Yeah, he should have acted better. But, there are much bigger fish to fry still swimming at large in the vast ocean of harassment and bureaucratic strong-arming. Bill was only a target because powerful people don’t like what he was saying—the very things that made him number one in cable news. And, they were willing to get rid of him, even though it meant losing money.

Money has rarely motivated the news industry. Newspapers are losing profit left and right, but they don’t change. News website advertising doesn’t work—not because readers don’t like ads, but because they don’t want ad services to triple web page load times. And, the slow, snail-mail, old culture leaders in the dying news industry think that web page load times are no problem because it’s faster than waiting for the morning paper. But, it’s not about that; it’s about slowing down your entire computer or not being able to read a story before you get off at your bus stop.

News is led by leadership that is out of touch with its own industry. That’s why Bill O’Reilly, of all people, was let go. And, just as predicted last week, he wasn’t the first. The small-fish friers saw the inch and thought themselves to be rulers. Someone accused Hannity, expecting the precedent to work. But, Hannity stopped that in a hurry. But, believe it, one way or another, Hannity is next.

Once Sean Hannity leaves his normal programming, he’ll have plenty of friends to welcome him—including Milo Yiannopoulos, Bill O’Reilly, and the newest inventor in news and information, Jimmy Wales. Yes, the Wikipedia founder is now starting the Wikitribune. As of press time, wikitribune.com has hired 4 of 10 journalists.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, April 24, 2017

Most of the news about Bill O’Reilly examines the history of advertising, accusations, money, and news ratings. The main topic of headlines from big news outlets are about Fox News—not what Bill O’Reilly’s future is, but what Bill O’Reilly’s future is at Fox, the competitor of reporting news companies.

It was all political. Yes, there are and have been for quite some time bolstered allegations that O’Reilly has too much playtime. The allegations against him pale in comparison to Clinton—either Clinton. But, it only mattered before because Bill was Big. It only bit this time because Roger Ailes wasn’t there to circle the wagons and he was targeted by special groups, such as Color of Change, that go after a media personality’s advertisers. That tried and failed against Rush Limbaugh, but not against Glenn Beck, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, and now Bill O’Reilly.

Again, Sarah Palin called Republicans a “party of cannibals”. They are. Everyone has problems. Only venues that cater to Republican-voting audiences exploit each other’s problems like chickens in a pecking order. Were O’Reilly’s audience made mostly of Democrats, he might have been praised. Only Roger Ailes would not capitulate over the accusations against O’Reilly over a decade ago, but the Murdoch’s would capitulate over Ailes and they did last year. Now, Fox capitulated again. It won’t stop. Fox News is beginning a trend of giving in to every weak-kneed demand like General Motor’s executives caving-in to most every whim of the unions.

It’s over for Fox. It’s over and dead.

No industry leader allows its most-viewed show’s most-viewed host to leave—and continues to be the industry leader. Right or wrong, dishonest or ethical, when Fox News fired Bill O’Reilly Fox News fired itself. It’s all about money. Under the pioneer of Fox News, Ailes, it was about long-term money. Now, governed by some “great successor”, it’s about short-term money. It’s always been about money. Now that it’s become about the short-term, so short is the term Fox News has left.

Everything will shift to alternative media. O’Reilly is resuming his work at billoreilly.com as of Monday, April 24th. And, Milo Yiannopoulos announced this week that he is returning to the public eye in a “comeback tour”.

Big news venues have attempted to take out Donald Trump, bolster the Democratic candidate in Georgia’s special election—who still didn’t win the necessary 50% of the vote to keep his seat past June. And, Republicans continue to play a losing game—eleven Republican candidates in the same Georgia district!?

“Big News” is a dying industry cannibalizing itself.  Were it not for the desperate scramble for what remains of industry-wide dwindling ratings, Bill O’Reilly’s problems, whatever they may be, wouldn’t have mattered.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, April 17, 2017

America is seeing a lot of in-fighting, so we are led to believe. Some of it is purifying while some of it is foolish. Some is real while some is over-reported.

Reporting would have us believe that Trump’s administration is divided. Little be it known that Lincoln packed his own cabinet with opponents in the Republican primaries. Some competition isn’t exactly bad. But, we still won’t know the whole story for at least two years.

Bill O’Reilly’s career is all but over. The big question is about timing. Roger Ailes resigned about nine months ago amid accusations because he didn’t want to be a “distraction” at the network. Now, accusations against O’Reilly have been long floating like feathers of a pillow emptied in the streets. But, only now are they surfacing. Why? Being the “network for Conservatives”, Sarah Palin is right. Republicans are a “party of cannibals” and, now, that same in-fighting narrative is being reported in the White House.

While the Conservative voters don’t want anything to do with a “party of cannibals”, the establishments that depend on them—Fox News and the RNC being at the front—don’t seem to get that message. O’Reilly is Catholic. Conservatives are often Christian in some form or another. Forgiveness is part of their model. Fox News and the Republican party would both be wise to denounce their tradition of socially cannibalizing. Fox News doesn’t answer to CNN and NBC audiences, it answers to its the Fox News audience. If O’Reilly resigns, it’s the beginning of the end for the Fox News Channel. If Bannon resigns, it’s the end of the Republican party.

But, that’s okay. Another news network and another political party can always take their place. Maybe that would be best anyway.

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