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Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism: Review

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No one familiar with the Fox News Channel is likely to find anything terribly shocking about activist filmmaker Robert Greenwald's expose of the enormously successful and highly influential 24-hour cable news network, but Greenwald skimps on the larger issue: media consolidation and corporate influence on media regulation. Critics have long complained about what they perceived as the channel's conservative bent ever since media mogul Rupert Murdoch founded FNC in 1996. Even then it came as no big surprise: Murdoch, the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation (a parent company of Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc.) had long been an ardent Reagan admirer who never kept his partisanship to himself, and Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes served as a key media consultant for the Nixon, Reagan and George H. Bush administrations. But allegations of bias and distortion grew louder as the network began to pick up steam, and by the time Republicans regained control of both the White House and Congress, liberal media watch groups were accusing FNC of nothing more than a mouthpiece for the GOP: Fox News wasn't so much reporting as repeating, passing off the Republican party line as news. Now more than ever, they argued, FNC's famous taglines — "Fair and balanced" and "We Report, You Decide" — misrepresented the channel's approach to journalism. Greenwald supports his contention that Fox News's right-wing ideological standpoint is not only reflected in the channel's story selection, but in its choice of commentators and reporting techniques with copious clips pulled directly from Fox News broadcasts. Greenwald and his dedicated production team recorded months worth of FNC, engaging a team of volunteer Fox-watching media monitors to keep their eyes peeled for instances of suspect practices — like on-air personalities' overuse of the phrase "Some people say" to avoid sourcing their own comments — the blurring of hard news and commentary, and distortion of facts. The monitors find exactly what they're looking for and the clips Greenwald pulled are expounded on by a number of media pundits and former Fox News employees who agree to describe their experiences at the network. It's an interesting compendium of evidence — and the bossy daily memos from Ailes and Fox News chief John Moody dictating the tone for that day's reporting are particularly unsettling — that ends with a call to action. For further viewing, check out Robert Kane Pappas excellent 2004 documentary, ORWELL TURNS IN HIS GRAVE. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism
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