Take the network's "some people say" mantra (as used in my first paragraph, above). I had watched plenty of Fox News without ever noticing this -- it's a way of introducing commentary, and specifically the reflexive right-wing views of the presumptive Fox core audience, into what is supposed to be news coverage, while appearing to not quite endorse it. "Some people say that criticizing the war at a time like this is letting down our men and women in uniform," or "Some people say Richard Clarke is a political operative who's trying to sell books." (Or, yes, "Some people are saying that John Kerry looks French!" -- uttered with a peculiar mixture of consternation and delight. Gosh, what a weird idea! But now that you mention it ...!)

There are plenty of specifics in "Outfoxed" to enrage the concerned citizen, and Greenwald includes a lame prescriptive section at the end, urging us to become media activists and reclaim the public airwaves from the imperial corporations. (I don't have any better ideas, but lefty media critics have been singing the same tune since the '60s, without noticeable effect.) But beyond the management memos urging producers and newscasters not to dwell on the Iraq body count or the 9/11 commission, beyond the pathological behavior of Bill O'Reilly, beyond the ruthlessly stilted political coverage (Brit Hume's talk show features five Republican guests for every Democrat, and most of the latter are of the mealy-mouthed centrist variety), beyond all that lies something still more discouraging.

If Rupert Murdoch had created a news network that was overtly political, even if those politics were scarily right-wing, that would be one thing. We are supposed to live in a marketplace of ideas; everybody gets a chance to air his views, and some of us, like Rupert, get more chances than others. But Fox News is the modern mass media at its worst, pushed to its logical extreme.

Rather than politics, Fox News offers only lockstep ideology. It does not present arguments; it blends fearmongering and happy talk, rinses in red, white and blue, and pours the mixture down our throats. Instead of challenging its audience, it simultaneously terrifies and comforts them, painting a hostile world constantly in need of good, old-fashioned Republican-style American might. It shows us a busy screen of sound and fury, but devoid of all thought. It's a nonstop thrill ride for the paranoid American body politic, and the public -- at least Murdoch's target audience -- has been as delighted as kids on their first visit to Disney World. Fox News has conquered the TV news landscape so thoroughly that the other networks have remade themselves in its image. Maybe I was wrong about Shep Smith -- some people say he looks more German than French.

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