This situation has been brewing for awhile, so I might as well weigh in. Fox anchors Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera are using Fox airwaves to bash Fox for airing the OJ Simpson interview.

One local station president is refusing to air the interview at all. From the article:

“We are going to take a financial loss, but you know some things are not for sale,” said station president Frank Quitoni.

Most people just treat this like a curiosity — hey look! He’s criticizing Fox on Fox!

I’d like to take a look, however, at what this says about media consolidation. Rupert Murdoch, Fox’s owner, is often seen as the most evil of the media barons. He owns media outlets all over the world, and an entire documentary has been made attacking Fox News.

I’ve supported two arguments for Murdoch in the past: (A) Media consolidation is a myth to begin with and (B) the big companies still have to compete against each other, and they provide a good deal of variety in themselves.

What this scenario shows, however, is that even one company within itself can provide several perspectives on its own behavior. This stems from the fact that opinion journalists hate nothing more than being muzzled. O’Reilly and Rivera have large enough followings that a threat to leave isn’t worth risking from Fox’s perspective.

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.