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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Even if you think you're wise to Fox News' right-wing agenda, Robert Greenwald's "Outfoxed" will leave you very afraid.
Jul 13, 2004 | I'm a neutral observer, of course, here to give you a fair and balanced report. But some people would say that Fox News Channel is nothing more than the private right-wing propaganda machine of a sneaky right-wing billionaire who is -- now these are just the facts, people -- not an American at all but some kind of Down Under, funny-accented, shrimp-on-the-barbie-eating, crocodile-hunting, profoundly un-American Australian, for goodness' sake.
And while I know Australia is not obviously very much like France -- treasonous, untrustworthy France -- let's look under the surface a little, OK? Do you know what one of Australia's top agricultural products is? That's right, it's wine. Draw your own conclusions, people, that's all I ask. And when you get right down to it, isn't there something French about Shep Smith, if you know what I mean? Isn't that "mousse" in his hair? Does that sound like an American word to you? Isn't there something about him that suggests the French government of, say, 1943? Something a little Vichy French? Nazi-collaborator French, possibly? I don't know, I'm only asking. You decide.
Maybe you think my parody of the methods employed by Fox News itself (yes, French and Australian readers, that's what it is -- please delete those partly composed e-mails) is a few truckloads too broad. After you see Robert Greenwald's documentary "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," you might change your mind.
Unlike "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Control Room" and "The Corporation" and the rest of the films in the Great Left-Wing Documentary Onslaught of 2004, you won't see "Outfoxed" in theaters, or at least not yet. Like Greenwald's 2003 movie, "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War" (which actually will reach theaters soon, in an updated and revised version), it's being distributed by way of a grass-roots guerrilla marketing campaign that bypasses traditional venues entirely. "Outfoxed" premieres Tuesday at the New School in New York, and in coming days MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress will be sponsoring roughly 2,000 house parties to screen it. (You can buy your own DVD or VHS copy through the film's Web site.)
It's not so much the fact that Fox News openly and sharply skews to the right, or, more accurately and more depressingly, that it parrots the Republican Party line. Unless you're just now getting cable or you live in Madagascar, that's not news. After all, there's something to be said for political frankness. I've always admired the way British newspapers wear their allegiances on their sleeves, and there's nothing duplicitous about it; all readers know that the Guardian favors the Labor Party and the Daily Telegraph supports the Conservatives, and they read those papers with appropriate ideological filters in place. I mean, hey, you're reading Salon right now; while we present a plurality of views and don't (I hope) march in lockstep with anyone, we make no pretense of political neutrality.
It's not even that Fox News commentators have suggested that John Kerry was the favored presidential candidate of the North Korean dictator. It's right there in "Outfoxed": An anchor on the morning show cheerily burbles, "Hey, [Kerry's] got Barbra and Kim Jong Il on his side -- what could go wrong?" "Yeah," chirrups the bimbette on his left, "North Korea loves John Kerry!"
