Just watched OutFoxed, a searing indictment of the Fox News channel in the US laying into its inherent right wing bias and fraudulent use of the term “fair and balanced”. It”s quite an eye-opener, especially as we don’t get Fox over here (it makes Sky News look like the Today program), and even though the documentary is obviously made with an agenda and does have some moments of factual sleight of hand (comparing Fox viewers with those of PBS is like comparing Killroy viewers with Radio 4 listeners. It’d be more interesting to compare them with MSNBC or CBS viewers but the graphics wouldn’t be so dramatic) it’s generally so out in the open that there’s very little to fault it for. If you can watch it, and I got a copy via BitTorrent, do so, especially if you live in the States.
As an outsider I find these sort of documentaries interesting in that, as with Fahrenheit 911, it’s easy to get all smug. I mean, this is Rupert Murdoch we’re talking about! We’ve been suffering his machinations for over three decades! Has it taken you people until now to realise what he’s up to? OutFoxed is clearly aimed at the educated middle class American who suspects something is wrong but can’t quite pin it down (unlike Moore’s work which with it’s Oprah-style emotive content is strictly prime-time) and again I found myself wanting to shout “isn’t this all blatantly obvious to you?”
But then I thought about it. We’ve been suffering Murdoch for over three decades. The Sun has been the bestselling daily paper for 26 years of its 40-year existence and where it leads others follow. Whether for financial or political reasons (or more likely both) Murdoch has made a concerted effort to influence and control our media and political landscape, creating a lowest common denominator in print and broadcast that allows the rest to fall while frightening our politicians into more and more draconian legislation. All this is blatantly obvious and yet we do nothing about it. Fox as a political force is a relatively new beast on the US media scene. News International has been fucking with us since the early 80s. I don’t think we’ve got anything to be smug about here…
Fox News can always be tuned out, and often is! But there is a willing audience out there that Fox panders to, so the advertisers support it and the show goes on. Interestingly, CNN began a downward slide at the same time Fox started to gain strength which is even more disturbing news as it suggests a general slide into poor news reporting and opinion generating.
Public Broadcasting is an interesting aberration in that it works well with a combination of government, private and personal financial support. I trust their opinions more than anyones. Their news reporting, however, is often dependent on others providing the material.
And don’t forget there’s always Pacifica Radio, way out there in left field!
The point that struck me hard isn’t so much that people should or shouldn’t tune out Fox but that it’s existence in America’s media world is corrosive. The other networks look at the success of Fox (which is based on lies, misinformation, misdirection and canny use of the flag) and decide they need to follow them in order to compete, erroding journalistic integrity, objective reporting and a sense of balance in the process.
It’s also worth noting that the situation is often compared to Stalinist Russia, in that it’s no so much that they’re right wing that’s the problem (though they are very right wing and that’s a bit of a problem), rather that they’re using techniques that have no place in a modern democracy.