Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, directed by Robert Greenwald is ten years old July 2014, but the picture it paints of Murdoch, and Fox News is more relevant and correct now then it was when it was released. This fast-moving seventy-eight minute documentary begins with Murdoch’s purchase of Fox and the steady move toward a non-journalistic approach to covering topical subjects that stretch the meaning of the word “news.” Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism is an inside look at how Fox News evolved and where it is today. This exploration begins with how Murdoch and his Australian company, News Corp, were able to get around FCC guidelines regulating foreign ownership of US Media and subsequently start a forth television network.
This documentary is a must see since Rupert Murdock is now, 2014, trying to buy and add Time Warner to his media empire. Ten years ago Senator Bernie Sanders, seen in Outfoxed, appeared to believe that concentrated corporate control of the media is not good for our democracy. Since that time media corporations have gotten even larger, with Murdoch’s News Corporation now one of the largest.
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism is aptly titled. The Murdoch organization doesn’t care about a journalistic approach to reporting the news. There are only two agendas in play at Fox News and The News Corporation in general. The first is making money and the second, ideologically based exploitation of topical issues. This is tabloid journalism as pure propaganda. The documentary explores these ideas through tracing the history of Fox News since Murdoch took over and soon after put Roger Ailes, an experienced Republican strategist, in charge of the entire operation.
The documentary includes clips featuring Fox News Reporters and pundits including Fox regulars like Sean Hannity, Britt Hume and Bill O’Reilly among others. There are also interviews with former Fox employees who candidly talk about their experience at Fox and the kind of manipulation of news that is practiced and encouraged. For example a “daily memorandum” comes out every morning telling reporters how to approach subjects of the day, what to say and what not to say. Other interviews in the documentary with Walter Cronkite, Christiane Amanpour, Tom Brokaw, and other industry professionals give added perspectives on the situation.
According to the filmmakers, the Outfoxed team “created a system to monitor Fox News 24 hours a day for months.” “Volunteers around the country scrutinized every hour of Fox News programming, noting examples of bias in its coverage.” Many examples are used in the documentary as media experts provide commentary.
As the film progresses there are many clips of Fox News personalities doing their thing, examples of the type of broadcasting they practice. One such segment shows a score of clips of Bill O’Reilly telling his guests to “shut-up,” after he tells someone he only said “shut-up” once, to one person. O’Reilly also turns up being rude and caustic to Jeremy Glick the activist son of someone killed on 911. Glick manages to hold his own in the interview, which infuriates O’Reilly. Al Franken in an interview about the incident concludes that it may be difficult to sue O’Reilly for his untruthful, on air attacks on Glick since O’Reilly may be a pathological liar – who doesn’t know when he’s lying. This idea might apply to the entire staff of Fox News.
Another interesting segment is Fox reporters using the term “some people say…” to interject their own or managements opinions into an interview. Once you start to listen for these qualifiers it’s amazing how often they turn up on Fox News. The slogan, “Fair and Balanced News,” adopted by Fox, is proven to be far from that reality, then and now.
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism is an excellent documentary, well-directed and edited. It tells a story that we all need hear. In the end it isn’t about Fox’s right wing propaganda agenda, it’s about understanding that there has to be unbiased sources out there where people can get facts and news to help them make decisions critical to the needs of a democracy. News and information should not be disseminated by a few sources, owned by a very small number of people.
Review by J R Martin, author Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia.
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