Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism [DVD]

Greenwald tackles Fox on different levels, and that's very thorough. He's got a panel of people like you and me, who systematically watched Fox and kept track of the way they experienced the news, the looks, the programs, the discussions.

He's got people from the inside, who left Fox and talk about the policy and the way Fox' right-wing agenda is forced into the news and the people, the anchors, who deliver it. He's got a global analysis, which deals with Murdoch's monopoly in the media world. And he shows how Fox influence the voting behaviour of the average American. Pretty factual strong stuff, from a journalistic point of view.

Compared to Michael Moore's approach, Greenwald is not emotional in any way. He presents you with the fatcs, and lets them do the work. Very clever, and very effective.

On a more personal note, I find it hard to judge news and information in the States, however. We Europeans tend to think of ourselves as more down-to-earth and neutral, but that is not the case. Our media are gradually evolving into a giving what people-want attitude and not the other way around. I still believe our media determine the quality of the public debate, not the public itself.

Make sure you watch Michael Mann's "The insider" and the way he shows what is going on on a corporate level with our independent media. And that is not just going on in the States.

Using the same technique that worked so well in "Uncovered," Greenwald plays clips from Murdoch's Fox News to show that Fox News is anything but "fair and balanced." From the clips of Bill O'Reilly verbally abusing his "guests" and telling them to "shut up" to Brit Hume mouthing the Republican Party line in the guise of objective journalism to slanted stories directed from above (that would be from Mr. Murdoch himself in some cases, like some worshipful filler about Ronald Reagan or some non-news from Bush's standard stump speech) to the daily email directives telling the staff at Fox News how to slant today's selected stories--from the glitz and the directive music and the flags in the background to the character assassinations of Republican opponents, to the "feel good" misinformation about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Greenwald shows that Fox News stands for propaganda, spoon fed to the American masses.

Interspersed with the clips are sound bites from ex-Fox employees (some of them with their voices and faces disguised or hidden for fear of reprisals from Fox) and media experts and even some progressive politicians. From the employees we get a glimpse of the stifling Fox News "culture" that subtly but unmistakably requires everyone on staff to slant the news as directed or find work some place else. What emerges is a portrait of a media empire that is dead set on destroying journalism as we know it. And that's the way Murdoch wants it. He wants to control events through the power of the media, to stifle contrary opinion and to keep the masses in couch potato ignorance.

Thus there is a specter haunting the American democracy, and that specter is media control by anti-democratic corporations. It is not just arch-conservative Rupert Murdoch and his vast media empire, it is CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, etc. that are becoming more and directed from above, and more and more divorced from actual reportage in favor of the kind of spin and slant that pleases the corporate heads. Even National Public Radio is coming under greater and greater corporate influence and control.

What's to be done?

We must elect public officials that will prevent the consolidation of media. If we don't, those who own the media will soon own the government. The airwaves belong to everyone. No one should have a monopoly on their use. Traditionally the media has served as "the Fourth Estate," a watchdog on government. More and more it has abdicated that responsibility because its purse strings are controlled by its corporate sponsors. In the case of Murdoch, more and more media is falling under the control of a single ideology. Can a fascist state be far behind?

I am not panicking yet. The Democrats saw what can happen when the other side controls most of the media (almost all of it, actually), and fiscal conservatives are learning that social conservatives may not be their best allies, especially faith-based evangelicals whose first order of business is a return to ignorance and superstition on the way to establishing a theocracy in the United States like something out of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." As the mass mind becomes more and more dumbed down and indoctrinated into mindless consumerism while being massaged by a dictatorial media, greater and greater grows the threat to democracy.

The real test will come after Bush is out of office. The next administration must take steps to break up ClearChannel, etc., and prevent the further consolidation of Murdoch's empire. The airwaves must be a public utility because to control media in the modern society is ultimately to control elections.

This documentary is a clarion call to wake up and smell the newsprint because if Murdoch has his way there will only be the comic page and Murdoch-slanted news stories, editorials and canned opinion.