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Dear Turn Off FOX Campaign Activists
Conventional political wisdom says that conservatives benefit politically from making national security a vital issue. Implied is the notion that though everyone suffers from terrorism, conservatives can gain from it, at least on the political stage. While that would be an abominable approach to encourage, the growing stake of Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal in News Corporation, the parent company of FOX News, suggests FOX benefits more directly from a man with a questionable background, raising the ire even of fellow conservatives.
Al-Waleed has long held some portion of the News Corp. stock, but as he has risen to the fourth-highest shareholder in the company, criticism for his involvement with the company has grown. Joseph Trento reports that while Al-Waleed regularly defends his home nation as pristine, interviewers tend to ignore the large donations to the families of suicide bombers he reportedly makes. Generally, organizations or governments pay the families of suicide bombers as a kind of reward for the actions of their deceased relatives. As such, Al-Waleed's donations would, in effect, count as supporting terrorism, a particularly onerous recognition for the "fair and balanced" news source. Somehow, Glenn Beck managed to miss connecting those dots on his chalkboard.
The prince and FOX have had scuffles in the past. After 9/11, FOX personalities excoriated the prince for offering a check for millions of dollars to help rebuild New York because the prince had suggested U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East may have had something to do with the attacks. Subsequently, FOX wrote off the check as "blood money." Strangely, though, FOX later accepted Al-Waleed's cash for a piece of the company and allowed the prince the right to manipulate FOX stories, a power he boasts of having over the network.
FOX's unusual pairing with someone with alleged ties to terrorism have caused conservatives like Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily to lambaste the alliance, as well. The ever-present calls for profiling and subtler demonization of Islam within conservative circles and perpetuated on FOX make the prince's stake in the company a confusing one. However, Rupert Murdoch's ties to China, maintained in spite of his employees' bashing of communism, illustrate that while FOX may have a willingness to force a focused, biased narrative onto the public, it is nonetheless a narrative with elements for sale to people with enough cash, no matter how authoritarian the regime or dubious the money's origins.
Funding from the Saudi prince will assuredly warrant more investigation as his influence in the company grows ever larger. If Al-Waleed does, in fact, fund terrorism, one would expect that a network that nearly drapes itself in the American flag would recognize some internal conflict worth addressing. Unfortunately, too much of FOX's investigative powers waste time literally barking at the president. As FOX refuses to keep its viewers duly informed, everyone else has an obligation to spread the truth about its owners -- and choose to Turn Off FOX.
Sincerely,
The Turn Off FOX Campaign
