Far out! Like wow! "Murdoch and Immelt tried to broker MSNBC-Fox News peace accord"--that's the tantalizing not-quite-sure-I-believe it headline atop an interesting blog-post from Joe Flint of the LA Times, reportingthat Rupert Murdoch and Jeff Immelt tried to bury the hatchet--and not in each other's back--at a recent Microsoft business conference. As Flint relates:
News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch and General Electric chief Jeffrey Immelt met up at -- appropriately enough -- the Microsoft CEO summit in Redmond, Wash., to figure out how to defuse tensions between the two channels, Company Town has learned. The primary focus of the chit-chat was the back-and-forth sniping between MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox's Bill O'Reilly. The two often exchange insults, Olbermann by name, O'Reilly by insinuation.
But the attempted peace-piping doesn't seem to have worked:
If Immelt and Murdoch took their message of peace and love back to their respective news channels, it doesn't seem to have taken. Olbermann, who generally is the aggressor, has been attacking Fox News and O'Reilly on a regular basis. O'Reilly still takes occasional shots at MSNBC, NBC and General Electric.
Joe Flint is a great Cable Gamer, and TCG doesn't doubt that something amicable was discussed between Murdoch and Immelt, but there's much reason to be skeptical that any such deal was ever in the making. Whether one loves or hates Fox or MSNBC, the plain fact is that the disputants--whatever else they might be--are sincere in their convictions.
So TCG rates this report as "not proven"--indeed, as a little acid-trippy. But if someone knows different, please tell me--and all of us!
