Documentary Puts fox News under the Microscope

Tracey Lindeman-Jarvis, CUP Arts Bureau Chief

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MONTREAL (CUP)—A high-school
teacher of mine used to say, “Believe half
of what you see, and nothing of what you
hear.” Perhaps she had Fox News in mind.
When the Fox News Channel was found-
ed in 1996, its newly appointed CEO and
chair, Roger Ailes, claimed to have the
best of intentions.

“We'd like to be premiere journalists.
We’d like to restore objectivity where we
find it lacking,’ said the renowned
Republican at a 1996 press conference.
“We just expect to do fine, balanced jour-
nalism.”

However, director and producer
Robert Greenwald finds this very notion
laughable, and has gone to great lengths
to disprove Fox News and its “Fair and
Balanced” slogan with his new documen-

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We decide.

tary, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdochs War on
Journalism.

From Walter Cronkite to Al Franken,
Greenwald has rallied a veritable who’s
who of former Fox News employees,
journalists, and media analysts to, in
effect, say the same thing: Rupert
Murdoch is an evil, corrupt, right-wing
opportunist and Fox News is his bastard
child with the Republican party.

And while some, if not all of it, may
be true, Ox/foxed is not the bastion of fair-
ness and balance, either.

A timeline of Murdoch’s acquisitions
and list of his media assets are splashed
across the screen in true PowerPoint fash-
ion. However, the list is quite distorted: it
pegs his assets at 100 cable channels, 175
newspapers, 40 book imprints, and 40 tel-

evision stations, among other properties.
And while Murdoch, as the CEO and
chair of the News Corp. media conglom-
erate, is most definitely a media mogul,
Outfoxed presents the numbers as direct
corporate ownership.

When the film says Murdoch owns 40
book imprints, it neglects to say he owns
only a couple of publishing houses—one
of them being HarperCollins, an umbrel-
la corporation under which about 40
smaller publishers and presses operate.
Ouifoxeds claims are not false, but they’re
also not exactly true, which is a little mis-
leading and leaves the impression of
grasping at straws.

Aside from its faults and an acute case
of talking-head syndrome, Ouffoxed is
nonetheless an interesting documentary.
Greenwald’s small production team, with
the help of some MoveOn.org members,
recorded and watched Fox News 24 hours
a day, seven days a week for months to
find incidents of fear-mongering, com-
mentary “disguised” as news, and
shouting matches between hosts and
guests.

The documentary takes a leftist look at
a conservative media network, ensuring
that there will be numerous clashes of
opinion. However, while some of the tes-
timony is just stating the obvious, some of
it is hard to ignore.

A former producer for a Washington,
DC, Fox affiliate in the late 80s and early
90s (a few short years after Murdoch pur-
chased Fox TV in 1985), Frank

 

O’Donnell recounts an incident where the
news team was ordered to cut away from
their newscast to air a “fawning tribute to
Ronald Reagan.”

“We were stunned because, up until
that point, we were allowed to do legiti-
mate news,” O’Donnell said. “And
suddenly we were ordered from the top
to...carry Republican, right-wing propa-
ganda.”

In addition, Oxifoxed reveals the Fox
News Channel team would receive daily
memos from senior vice-president John
Moody, outlining what would be men-
tioned and what would be ignored in the
day’s news.

“T’ve never heard of any other net-
work nor any other legitimate news
organization doing that,’ said famous
anchor Walter Cronkite of the memos.
“Newspaper or broadcast.”

While it is very easy to demonize Fox
for its questionable content and validity, it
has set a trend in the way television news
is now being served to the public on other
networks.

“You cannot outfox Fox. But MSNBC
and the others have tried,’ said Jeff
Cohen, a former Fox News Channel
expert, media and political commentator,
and founder of Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting. “Since the corporate owner-
ship of the other channels does not allow
anyone to counter-program against Fox,
you know, in television, the inclination is
imitation.”

 

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January §=19/2008