I asked this question over in politics cuz I didn't see anything over here. No answer. Am I just not seeing it? I'm not trying to double post, I just can't find it anywhere. Last Sunday night, did anyone besides me watch Moveon.org's nationwide premiere of the movie OutFoxed about how biased Fox's cable news network is? My mother is a memeber of Move On and brought it to my town. I watched it. We really enjoyed it. I thought it made it's point very well, gave many examples of each thing it was trying to say, educated me about Rupert Murdoch's media dynasty, and was just very well made. Anyone else? Please tell me someone else watched it.
Good! Then you can tell me what you thought. I almost never watched Fox news, personally, for no particular reason, but this was very revealing. A lot of people gathered at the local organic microbrewery to watch it. People all over the nation gathered in living rooms and such on Sunday night to watch it at the same time and get online and discuss it. I thought that was a great way to debut an 'underground' political movie. That way they didn't have to try to find a national venue that would accept it.
I don't think I am willing to pay for it, so maybe I'll try to download it online. I don't exactly subscribe to the Moveon.org crowd of mostly Kerry-supporting Democrats (being an Independent libertarian), but I would still like to see it, being as open-minded as I am. Out of curiosity, what does this documentary present that the initiated don't already know? I mean, I don't need to watch a documentary to know that Fox News is biased? You know what I mean? What are some main points the documentary makes?
I would imagine it would present nothing new for you (I haven't seen it yet though). I just think it will be funny. There are many people who don't think Fox is biased though, I don't know if this will reach them or not, but it's worth a shot. My parents watch Fox and only Fox. It's sickening. They deny that it's biased.
My grandmother is always preaching Fox News drivel to me and it annoys me so much. She watches it nonstop all the time. She definitely doesn't think it's biased.
It's true that Outfoxed may not provide you with a stunning revelation. You may already realize that Fox is very biased. Personally, I didn't pay attention to Fox News much before. However, the footage in this film illustrates very clearly how Rupert Murdoch has used Fox News in particular, and his vast media empire, to promote his right-wing views. For example, there are memos that are sent out every morning to the anchors at Fox News telling them what to focus on, what to say, and exactly how to say it. People who don't promote RM's views enough, or who are percieved to contradict them, are reprimanded and fired. They aren't allowed to cover some events at all, and are forced to cover others that don't seem newsworthy or relevant. Two examples of this are when they had to air long tributes to Ronald Reagan when he was still alive and when they had to air an episode of a program that criticized Ted Kennedy, who RM despises. It had nothing to do with the current news. Several employees of Fox News spoke, some with their voices and identities concealed, about what it was like to work for a 'news' organization where they were forced to show a strong bias. It shows catch phrases that the anchors use to silence people that they don't agree with. It shows people's microphones being turned off when they don't agree with the hosts. It shows very unprofessional techniques the anchors use to insert their opinion and present it as though it is fact. it shows them badgering people. One young man was being interviewed because his fathered died in the World Trade Center. When he criticized George Dubya, saying for one thing that he feels that we are not safer since the war in Iraq started, Bill O'Reily turned off his microphone and threatened to hurt him. And all of this happened while Fox claimed as it's motto, "Fair and Balanced.' It really explains how dangerous it is for one individual to own so much of the media, and breaks RM's ownings down globally. None of this was a shocking revelation. However, at the end, the filmmaker and others talk about what people can do to protect themselves from disinformation and to protect their access to information. The point, like Farenheit 9/11, was, in my opinion, not to tell people stuff that nobody knows, but to organize the information in a useful way and share it. This makes a clear picture and gets people talking. That's a good thing. I really enjoyed it.
