MSNBC wants to be like Fox

MSNBC President Phil Griffin told Chicago Tribune that he wants MSNBC to be more like Fox News in their content and shows. Basically, Griffin wants to be more partisan and opinionated in their shows. When asked about Roger Ailes, Fox News chief, and his work at Fox, Griffin says ,"he's changed media. Everybody does news differently because Roger's changed the world. Roger early on figured it out and was brillant." With Fox's increasing popularity, news networks are looking at Fox's news structure and content to see how they can emulate their success. I'm worried about news networks changing their format to fit a more "Fox model" in their news coverage. Should their be standards for balanced news and opinion within cable news networks like Fox and MSNBC?

More on filters and search engines

Like Google, Microsoft has vowed to protect freedom of expression around the world, however as a study from Open Net Initiative revealed Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, has a strict filter on information available in the Middle East. As the study suggests, Bing “filtered Arabic and English words for sexually explicit content along with queries related to gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender material.” Unlike other censorship cases around the world, Bing’s filters are self-imposed and it has been argued that the search engine is more ‘prudish’ than many governments in the region. While committed to freedom and democracy, Bing might not be ready yet to ‘scandalize’ the Middle Eastern markets.

Google vs China

Governments around the world can control what their citizens have access to, through regional filters that block web sites with ‘sensitive’ information on search engines. As an article in the Asia Times details, in January, Google one of the biggest online companies stood up against the big guy, China, and decided that it was no longer going to censor its result on the Chinese Google.cn site. Last March Google made the threat effective and pulled out of China, rerouting Google.cn to the Hong Kong site, Google.com.hk. However as the New York Times suggests while admirable, Google’s decision of pulling out of the Chinese market might be a huge risk on business terms. The New York Times argues that the only winner in this dispute between the two giants will be Baidu the biggest Chinese search engine and Googles most fervent competitor in the region. The real question now is whether Google, that in the end is a corporation and by consequence is profit driven, will be able to uphold its commitment with freedom of expression in face of threats to the company’s business model?