Written by Linda
January 11, 2009
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is the latest in-your-face documentary about how weirdly f**ked up the political climate has become these last few years in the United States, informing the media's portrayal of "news." Created with funding by leftist political watchdog group MoveOn.Org, Robert Greenwald's documentary comes across as a bit low-budget and thrown-together at times, but you can't argue that it doesn't pack a punch.
Outfoxed presents for viewers a critique of the cable news channel Fox News Network. Now, I don't have cable, and have never personally watched Fox News, so I have to admit that I was a bit alarmed by the constant conservative editorializing (thinkly veiled as Republican propaganda) that this channel passes off as "fair and balanced" news. Hmmm. Anyone who has worked in journalism (like myself), knows that any publication inevitably leans one direction or the other in choosing their spin on a story, but to have internal daily memos (which the film uses frequently) emphasizing a pro-Bush spin on every story, no matter how damning is, needless to say, a no-no.
Outfoxed, if anything, is entertaining mud-slinging. The exposé of Bill "Shut up!" O'Reilly is both hilarious and infuriating. A particularly baffling scene involves O'Reilly out-shouting Jeremy Glick, a young man who lost his father in the World Trade Center, and is now an well-spoken anti-war advocate. O'Reilly's struggle to keep from slapping the kid is obvious, as he claims he is only controlling his anger out of respect for his father (may he rest in peace). A "journalist" who tells his viewers to repeatedly shut up is not exactly the best poster-boy for free speech, now, is he?
Fox News, I might add, is just an extreme example of the bigger picture. One needs to only look at the initial coverage of the Iraq war to wonder what the media was hiding from us in their spin. Thank goodness we live in a country where there are options to the spin we choose to listen to! The problem is that news viewers and listeners, on both sides of the fence, are so loyal to their sources of information that they, unfortunately, only see one view of the world. And that is why this country is so polarized in this election year.
