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Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism
(2004)
Dir: Robert Greenwald
I have a BA in Journalism, and I gotta say, it’s becoming more and more like having a degree in Latin. It’s a dying art, and dear old Rupert Murdoch is busy digging it a deep, unmarked grave. Murdoch--who has gone from inheriting a newspaper in 1954 to helming a media empire (News Corp) that reaches seventy-five percent of the world’s population--strong-arms his Regan-fellating agenda most alarmingly through the Fox News Channel. Fox has been operating amid a steady stream of accusations that it panders to the NeoCons for a while now, and it’s really no surprise. Seriously, what kind of news organization has a petulant fucking toddler like Bill O’Reilly as an host. A “newsman” who frequently tells his guests to “shut up” and often cuts their microphones when they see fit to disagree with his rhetoric. Or how about swollen, doe-eyed Sean Hannity. Ever the solemn-faced frat-boy, who, in his quest to “deliver us from evil,” commonly segues into election countdown segments by saying, “204 more days until George W. Bush is reelected.” These folks must know that they are sublimely full of shit too, because most of Fox‘s alum carry the same, telling smirk that G.W. hasn‘t been able to wipe off of his face for the past four years. This is the network that filed a lawsuit against Al Franken for using the term “fair and balanced” in his book title (“Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right“), arguing that they own to rights to the slogan. They lost. Their other appallingly misaligned slogan is “We Report, You Decide.” Fucking hardly. How about, “They decide, We regurgitate.” Outfoxed follows the horror-show from Fox News’ lesser origins to its current existence as the propaganda-gushing juggernaut that disgraces cable and satellite TV the world over. The network has zero journalistic credibility. Ranging from internal memos that circulate daily demanding a tone for the day’s “news,” to the unabashed use of the phrase, “some people say” used in lieu of attributing statements to verifiable sources, thereby allowing anchors to make pointed statements seem valid, everyone at Fox has elephant shit all over their faces. It seems nothing phases their alliance with the GOP. One particularly disheartening example of their fervid allegiance is in O’Reilly’s on-air attack of Jeremy Glick. Glick, whose father, a NY port authority worker, was killed in the terrorist attacks on 9/11, signed an anti-war petition, prompting O’Reilly to book him as a guest. In the film, Glick discusses how he studied O’Reilly’s on-air habits before going on the show, in order to better convey his point. He managed to make some enlightening statements about our country’s ties to the Taliban on air, which caused O’Reilly to fly zip-codes off the handle, spewing livid insults at Glick and making gross assumptions about his deceased father’s political beliefs. After he told Glick to shut up and cut his mic, O’Reilly called security and then, off the air, told Glick to get out of the studio, threatening to “tear him to fucking pieces.” Long live objectivity. If all of this seems too insane to be believed (as it should), Greenwald has a sturdy roster of sources, including former Fox contributors and reporters (three of whom chose to remain anonymous) and a whole barrage of media experts to keep it all in perspective. The research for the documentary also entailed enlisting a fleet of volunteers to monitor the Fox New Network twenty-four hours-a-day for months on end. It is compelling stuff, but it’s a little scary that people haven’t been able to identify Fox’s deceptive practices themselves. Buy this DVD. Watch it twice and pass it on. While it’s ill-advised to assume that this country has a pristine record of offering a purely democratic political system to its citizenry, we still have some power. Now is definitely not the time to leave go of it. The last time the world saw propaganda as effective and frightening as what Murdoch’s constituents are churning out, it was the handiwork of goose-stepping Goebbles and friends.
www.disinfo.com
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