Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalisim was directed by Robert Greenwald in 2004. The film is a documentary on how Rupert Murdoch started on his media journey in the 1950’s by inheriting a newspaper and progressing to own nine media companies as of the date of the film. The film focuses on Fox Network’s repeated use of opinion-based journalism that is spun into facts by catch slogans such as “Fair and Balanced”, or “We Report, You Decide.”
Within the first ten minutes of the film Jeff Cohen makes a powerful point:
“The average citizen will never get close enough to a political candidate to question their motive”
-Jeff Cohen, Outfoxed
We must think:
–What does the candidate support?
–Who is the candidate at their core?
We form our opinions based on what the media shows us.
What if the media isn’t showing us everything?
What if the media has a vested interest in one political party, or candidate, over the other?
What if Fox News is “Fair and Balanced” as long as you buy into their reporting? Or perhaps Fox News should have slogans such as “We Report (what we want), You Decide (based on only hearing our side without research)”.
The Outfoxed film had several former Fox employees discuss the pressures from senior management to report in a manner consistent with the political figures they support. According to the report Fox, and Murdoch, are proponents of the Republican party and this is evident in their reporting of Reagan and Bush. Interestingly, or coincidentally enough, my viewing of the Outfoxed movie on YouTube was interrupted by repeated ads for Donald Trump…coincidence or target marketing based on statistics from my browsing history or those who typically watch this video.
I tried to research Robert Greenwald’s political affiliation and did not find anything substantial…which leaves the question-could Greenwald be biased? Greenwald’s Outfoxed focuses on the network’s support and endorsement of Republicans and why there is bias. The report fails to indicate the network’s views on the Democrats. Additionally Greenwald has a film listed on IMDB.com called Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA; the NRA is typically opposed by Democrats.
It’s been about sixteen years since Outfoxed was filmed and ten years since Catherine Taibi’s blog post on Huffington Post, and not much has changed. Fox still appears to align with the Republican party and only portray their view on the matters. The recent impeachment segment was titled “Impeachment Insanity” and highlighted the fact that the key witness, Tucker Carlton, could not identify any crimes committed (Flood, 2020, p. 1). Perhaps the coverage, and subsequent reporting, was a means to boost ratings-but it doesn’t change the fact that it makes Fox appear as though they are in support of the Republican party. I don’t think Fox has worsened since the documentary or blogpost, but there hasn’t been improvement either.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, don’t believe what you read or hear..check your facts. Use resources such as mediabiasfactcheck.com or snopes.com. In order to become a more media literate consumer, I check the sources of my research on those pages and others. I’ve always been skeptical of the news, but learning how media is controlled by a very small group of owners is pushing me to research further and dig deeper.
Fox is not an extreme example of how media ownership impacts agendas…Fox was just the easiest to uncover and exemplify the problems of media ownership. Eventually others will be uncovered too.
References
Greenwald, R. (Director). (2004) Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism [Motion picture]. USA.
Taibi, C. (2014). It’s been ten years since ‘Outfoxed’ gave FOX News a huge headache. Huffington Post. [online]
Flood, B. (2020). Fox News impeachment hearings coverage tops all broadcast, cable networks for second day. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-impeachment-hearings-top-broadcast-cable Posted bylosi1015Posted inUncategorizedEdit Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalisim -Industry leader or matter of opinion?
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