BY AUSTIN WHITTEN
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, a recently released documentary about the Fox News channel in the US, has mostly been ignored in Australia by the corporate media. At the same time, lawyers have threatened to sue a group that planned to show the film.
Outfoxed, which documents the channel's misinformation campaign supporting the Iraq war, has become an underground hit in the US where it was released directly to DVD in July. It sells for US$9.95 from Amazon.com and from the Outfoxed web site <http://www.outfoxed.org>.
According to an August 23 British Guardian article, in its first week, it ranked #1 in sales at Amazon.com and sold more than 25,000 DVDs from the Outfoxed web site. The project was sponsored and financed by Move On, the innovative US anti-war group that has no office of its own and uses email to conduct most of its business. Move On has deep pockets — with donations from George Soros and individuals from the IT industry — that allow it to finance projects that take on powerful figures like Rupert Murdoch.
US residents can enter their postal code on the Move On website to see if there is a "block party" screening taking place within 10 miles of where they live. If not, the enquirer is encouraged to organise one and to register it with the site. More than 3500 have been organised so far, according to the New York Times.
Outfoxed, made in secret according to the Australian Financial Review, was approached in an organized, methodical manner. A system was worked out to capture everything that was broadcast on the Fox News Channel for five months. Ten to 15 volunteers — "media monitors" — were assigned to watch specific segments of the schedule. Eight or nine topics were earmarked for special attention — including the recurring theme of the "happy" people of Iraq and pro-Bush and anti-Kerry items.
The success of Outfoxed has been played down in the US corporate media. In an interview on <http://www.synthesis.net>, director Robert Greenwald touched on onereason why the media want to avoid the subject — they have adopted many of the techniques used by Murdoch.
"They're starting to affect other networks, and that's the thing of concern, because they're distorting, they're not telling the truth, they're not fair and they're not balanced. I don't want that to spread to other networks", Greenwald said.
Move On has filed a petition of complaint against Fox News for "deceptive practices in advertising and marketing", with the US Federal Trade Commission. "Fox News has advertised and promoted the Fox News Channel (FNC) using the slogan and mark, 'Fair and Balanced', but FNC news and commentary programming is not remotely 'fair' or 'balanced'."
A recent comment by a Melbourne resident posted on the Internet Movie Database website pointed out that: "This astonishing expose of the techniques Rupert Murdoch uses to spread his poison around the globe is big news in the US, but...surprise, surprise...has not even been mentioned in passing in the Australian press, where Murdoch owns most of the newspapers."
Murdoch's rival, Fairfax, carried one story about Outfoxed, in the Australian Financial Review, written mostly from the financial point of view, downplaying its content.
A screening of Outfoxed, scheduled to be shown by a political group in Sydney recently, was cancelled when the organisation was contacted by lawyers and threatened with being sued if it went ahead with the showing.
The Murdoch empire has used high-profile threats of litigation to protect its interests in the past. An NZ Press Association story relates how the Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of The Simpsons for parodying the channel's anti-Democratic Party stance, with headlines like "Do Democrats Cause Cancer?" The Simpsons is broadcast on Fox's sister network Fox Entertainment. Simpson's creator, Matt Groening, said. "We called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself."
One of the people involved in the production of Outfoxed recalled the film Network, scripted by Paddy Chayefsky, that anticipated the blurring of news and entertainment and the corrosive influence corporate ownership would have on editorial content. "Unless you are able to change the media, you will never be able to get the social changes you want in the country", he said.
[The Socialist Alliance will be holding a screening of Network and other media-related films on October 3 at 6.30pm, at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre in Sydney. Cost is $8/$4.]
From Green Left Weekly, September 22, 2004.
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