Greenwald Robert - Outfoxed : [Rupert Murdochs war on journalism]

OUT FOXED

Alexandra Kitty

Introduction by Robert Greenwald

disinformation

2005 Alexandra Kitty & Robert Greenwald

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Contents

Fox News? You're Crazy!

Introduction by Robert Greenwald

When I told a few people, in whispered tones, that I was thinking about pursuing Fox News as the subject of my next documentary, the responses included both cheers and condolences. There were also a few patronizing pats on the head (as though I had completely and totally lost my mind), and of course one or two epithets that can't be printed in a book intended for family consumption. Nobody was neutralvirtually everyone felt strongly and intensely about this so-called news network and the importance of focusing an objective, critical lens on it.

What was most shocking to me was how little had been written or produced in the way of a critique of Fox News. All my media contactswriters, producers, editors, reportersseemed to accept without question that Fox News was biased; that Fox was obviously parroting the Republican party line; that in fact there was a clear connection between the RNC and Fox News; but very little was being written about it Fox was not being held to any standard; there was no accountability; there was no sense of outrageat least not in the public media

As I probed further, talking to some good friends, colleagues and others in the media for whom I have enormous respect, it became pretty clear that Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and John Moody had cleverly set up a seemingly no-lose situation for themselves; that is, if other news organizations talked about or wrote about the bias of Fox News it would seem as though they were simply attacking a competitor, and their motives and conclusions would thus be suspect. But by ignoring Fox, the rest of the media was in effect allowing a real tarnishing of our free and Democratic society, because an organization that was partisan was pretending not to be, and not being called on it Thus I was inspired to set the record straight, and there followed seven months of incredibly hard work, seven days a week, to produce the film Outfoxed.

The support from my amazing partners at MoveOnWes Boyd, Noah Winer, Eli Pariser, Peter Schurman and Joan Bladeswas instant and unwavering. The only thing they wanted, understandably, was to get the film done before the media became focused on the summer political conventions They didn't want it to get lost in accusations of political demagogueryironic given Fox's partisanship, but nonetheless something that I respected. John Podesta, Raj Goyle and the other terrific folks at the Center for American Progress were equally enthusiastic and understood the importance of the film. John wisely counseled that we tie it into the larger issues of media consolidation, in that Fox News was truly part of the larger problem of having a few folks in the media controlling so much of the message we get.

So I began in early December, 2003a perverse Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa present to myselfand was able to enlist some of my extraordinary colleagues and partners who had worked on Uncovered, including Jim Gilliam, Kate McArdle, Devin Smith, Chris Gordon and Lisa Smith-line I supplemented them with a team of researchers and editors who would come in at seven in the morning, work until seven or eight at night and be followed by a second team who would arrive and work through the night until the first team was back, in order to make our summer deadline.

MoveOn, through the wonderful work of Noah Winer and his media group, sent word out to their constituents that they were looking for some volunteers to work on a project The specifics were kept vague, because I was deeply concerned that Fox would undertake legal action to stop the film from going ahead. In short order, I was on a phone call with 9 or 10 people, all women, from around the country, whose only real commonality was their passion for democracy and their conviction that the distortion of news had to stop.

These wonderful womenour media monitorsspent hours and hours every week watching Fox News at specific assigned times (Jim Gilliam worked out a master chart), noting the times of certain topics and incidences I was looking for and sending in daily e-mail reports So, for example, somebody might be watching Hannity & Colmes each day; they would then record that at 2:15 p. m. on Tuesday, Hannity made an anti-Kerry statement. The person monitoring Bill O'Reilly might note that on Wednesday at 6 p.m. he mentioned gay marriage, etc We would use that information to make video copies of those incidences from our master videotape of the Fox News broadcast, which was being recorded 24 hours a day at my production office. These incident tapes then went to the editors, who were compiling the record of what Fox News was doing.

Similarly, the terrific folks at FAIRPeter Hart, Steve Rendall and former head Jeff Cohen joined the effort by giving me guidance, and undertaking the very important and STILL overlooked study that FAIR did of the Brit Hume show, which revealed that Hume's fair and balanced guests were 80% Republican, 20% Democrat. At the same time, I reached out to a council of wise men and women whose ideas and viewpoints became helpful voices in the overall creation of the film, and who in some cases became on-camera interview subjectseveryone from Jeff Cohen to David Brock to Chellie Pingree. And then, perhaps most critically, we began the process of finding those former and current employees at Fox News who felt so strongly about the politics of Fox that they were willing to jeopardize their careers and either get me material or speak out publicly The amazing Kate McArdle, with her wonderful, energetic and chatty phone voice, spent hours talking to and following up on leads that I generated, tracking people down Slowly but surely, current and ex-Foxies (as they came to be known by our team) came forward, and their accounts became the heart and soul of the first-hand reports and stories in the film, that affirmed what everybody with any common sense knewwhich was that Fox was not biased by accident Partisanship was built into the DNA at Fox News, and was legislated at the highest levels