"OutFoxed": How Rupert Murdoch Is Destroying American Journalism

By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted July 10, 2004.

As "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's powerful indictment of the Bush Administration, is influencing millions of Americans in the heartland, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," a devastating new documentary that exposes Bush's biggest cheerleader opens this week in New York and San Francisco and will be featured in thousands of house parties across the country, sponsored by MoveOn.org on Sunday, July 18th.

"Outfoxed" demonstrates in painful detail how one media empire, making full use of the public airwaves, can reject any semblance of fairness or perspective, and serve as the mouthpiece of right-wing conservatives, fully relishing its role. Media critic Jeffrey Chester describes the Fox News operation most succinctly in the film: "Fox News Channel is a 24/7 commercial for the conservatives and the Republican Party."

Produced and directed by veteran Hollywood filmmaker Robert Greenwald, "Outfoxed" puts on the screen, for the first time ever, a gaggle of former Fox producers, reporters, writers, and bookers who provide rich background to life within the Fox media empire, particularly how they were forced to push a right-wing view or lose their jobs.

Fox's hypocrisy in the wholesale undermining of journalism for political purposes was a major motivation for Greenwald to make the documentary. "I hope the film can serve as a catalyst to break the silence about Fox News," says Greenwald. "Virtually all journalists know that it's a sham, that their trademark 'Fair and Balanced' is a lie, and that in addition, Fox is leading the charge to dumb down the news, and to spend less and less money on news coverage, and bleed it for every possible dollar of profit... which relates to the larger theme of the film: corporate control of the media and the problems it brings up for a democracy."

The film takes risks and breaks new ground, as Robert S. Boynton in the New York Times Magazine reports: "No one has made a documentary about a media company that uses as much footage without permission as Greenwald has, and the legal precedents governing the "fair use" of such material while theoretically strong, are not well established in case law." The legal strategy, should Fox sue, is still evolving, but Greenwald's legal team includes the brilliant theorist Lawrence Lessig and Chris Sprigman, a fellow at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.

Greenwald took a unique approach to making his documentary. He put together a team of media volunteers enlisted via MoveOn.org who monitored Fox News 24 hours a day for months, and reviewed every show to demonstrate its model for spreading the same propaganda comprehensively throughout the network's programming. A special "behind the scenes" portion of the "OutFoxed" DVD highlights their work. (Greenwald's Fox News monitoring team continues to follow and document the network's bias.)

Relying on the work of his tracking team, Greenwald's documentary provides the viewer with a primer on propaganda techniques, documenting how the underlying goal of creating fear and uncertainty in the minds of viewers is achieved by use of language and repetition.

The documentary deconstructs Fox's hot button issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, the constant presence of God in the political context, and the march to war in Iraq, and how these are seamlessly inserted into the language, the visuals, and the emphasis throughout the day. One of the most powerful motifs in the film is Greenwald's effective use of leaked "theme of the day" memos apparently sent daily by John Moody, a senior vice president for news. These memos provide the framework for the spin on the news by the overall news operation. One memo warned: "Do not fall into the trap of mourning U.S. lives." Another says of the Falluja seige: "It won't be long before some people start to decry the use of excessive force. We won't be among that group."

"Outfoxed" demonstrates how the message of the day gets repeated hundreds of times by the anchors – virtually by rote – which must be an affront to all who want to make up their own minds about current affairs. And Greenwald proves pretty clearly that critical thinking is not what Fox News is about.

The documentary portrays Fox News' top host Sean Hannity as a bully, and its biggest star, Bill O'Reilly, a consistently documented liar with an anger problem. In one of the most powerful moments in the film, Jeremy Glick, a son of a worker killed in the World Trade Center disaster, appears as a guest on O'Reilly's show and takes him on, refusing to buckle in to his berating. O'Reilly invites "liberals" on to his show to turn them into punching bags, but in this case, when the plan goes astray, he loses it, threatening Glick with outlandish accusations, and then pulling the plug on his microphone.

Al Franken does a funny bit on the possibility of suing O'Reilly for libel for distorting the character of Glick's comments in later episodes. Franken suggests that Reilly lies pathologically, and that lawyers have told him that it would be harder to sue for defamation if someone already has a record of outrageously lying. Interestingly, in 2003, Fox brought suit against Franken and his publisher, EP Dutton/Penguin, for allegedly infringing on Fox's three-word trademark "Fair and Balanced." The offense? Franken's book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" (which attacked Fox), was subtitled "A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."

Don Hazen is the Executive Editor of AlterNet.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from MediaCulture! Sign up now »