Outfoxed:
Documentary Paints Damning Portrait Using Fox’s Own Footage
By Paul Rosenberg,
Senior Editor

“It’s unfair, it’s slanted and it’s a hit job. And I haven’t even seen it yet.”
—Eric Shawn, Fox News Reporter

     Those are the first words on the website for Robert Greenwald’s new documentary, “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism.”
     Fair and Balanced? You watch, you decide. That’s exactly what more than 30,000 people did at 3,192 house parties sponsored by MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress on Sunday, July 18. Forty-three people attended one hosted by Jack and Linda Finley, in the living room of their tree-shrouded home in San Pedro.
     Fox has tried to blunt the film’s impact by targeting the sizzle—damning first-hand testimony by former staffers whom Fox dismisses as “disgruntled,” and management memos whose pro-Republican slant Fox claims (without proof) is unrepresentative. These are part of what makes “Outfoxed” an engaging and compelling documentary— along with lots of Fox footage ranging from silly (trying to paint Kerry as “French”) to embarrassing (the sunny side of Iraq) to downright damning (Bill O’Reilly’s penchant for lying).
     But “Outfoxed” has plenty of steak as well—otherwise “boring,” irrefutable facts that buttress the more sensational evidence. And the sizzle just keeps on sizzling—as the Outfoxed.org website features supporting comments from current on-air contributors. Most notably, media critic Neal Gabler says, “To say that this network promotes the Republican view, not the conservative view, but the Republican view is like saying that the Pope is Catholic. It’s self-evident.”
     Back on the steak side of things, the claim that Fox is “Fair and Balanced” collides with the results of a 25-week study conducted by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), revealing the imbalance of Fox guest lists—a 5-1 GOP edge over Democrats on Brit Hume’s premiere show. Even the Democrats tended to be conservatives or centrists, often in support of Bush.
     “My criticism of Fox isn’t that it’s a conservative channel,” said FAIR founder Jeff Cohen in the film, following this revelation. “It’s the consumer fraud of ‘fair and balanced.’”
     Even the more basic claim, that “Fox News” is actually a news channel, is challenged by a poll from the Project on International Policy Alternatives (PIPA) revealing Fox viewers as wildly misinformed on issues surrounding the invasion of Iraq.
     “That’s why I don’t watch Fox,” one party-goer exclaimed during a discussion afterwards.
     In fact, “Outfoxed” merely presents the tip of the iceberg of PIPA’s findings. Based on seven polls taken from January through September 2003—but with a core focus on three polls from June through September—PIPA’s study (later reported in Political Science Quarterly [PSQ], Winter 2003-2004), found that “a [60 percent] majority of Americans have had significant misperceptions and these are highly related to support for the war with Iraq.” Of three major misperceptions, PIPA found that 48 percent mistakenly believed that evidence of Iraqi-al Qaeda links have been found, 22 percent believed that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have been found, and 25 percent believed that worldwide public opinion favored the US invasion.
     “Standing out in the analysis are Fox and NPR/PBS, but for opposite reasons.” The PSQ article stated. “Fox was the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions. NPR/PBS are notable because their viewers and listeners consistently held fewer misperceptions than respondents who obtained their information from other news sources.” What’s more, “In the case of those who primarily watched Fox, greater attention to news modestly increased the likelihood of misperceptions.” For example, “Among those who did not follow the news at all, 42 percent had the misperception that evidence of close links to al Qaeda has been found, rising progressively at higher levels of attention to news to 80 percent among those who followed [Fox] news very closely.” In other words—the more Fox you watch, the less you know.
     Adding insult to injury, “Outfoxed” has a section called “Happy Iraq,” showing Fox’s repeated attempts to portray Iraq the way a travel agent might. We see the Baghdad Equestrian Club as well as Iraq’s Olympic Team in training—not to mention Brit Hume’s argument about how safe Iraq is. There’s less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than in California, Hume argued, and both are roughly the same size. The vast differences in population were apparently more than Hume could handle.
     Then there’s Bill O’Reilly. We see him claim he’s only told a guest to “shut up!” just one time, after which we see him saying “shut up!” again, and again, and again. Sometimes, admittedly, it’s not to a guest. He also says that all who oppose Bush’s war should “shut up!”
     We also see him screaming to shut up Jeremy Glick, the son of a Port Authority worker who died on 9/11 and who opposed Bush’s “war on terrorism” response, including the invasion of Iraq, based on a seemingly sound grasp of past US duplicity in the Middle East. His interview cut short, Glick was summarily hurried out of the studio because Fox staffers feared that O’Reilly might physically attack him.
     We then see later footage of O’Reilly blatantly lying about the incident we’ve just seen. “He came on this program and accused President Bush of knowing about 9/11 and murdering his father!” O’Reilly fumes, completely at odds with the actual footage.
     Another damning piece of footage never aired on Fox. It’s pre-interview footage from the 2000 campaign, in which Fox’s campaign correspondent, Carl Cameron, chats intimately with candidate Bush about his wife working on Bush’s campaign. “My wife has been hanging out with your sister,” Cameron tells Bush. “To hear Pauline tell it, when she first started campaigning for you, she was a little bit nervous,” he continues. “But now she’s up there.”
     “Getting her stride?” Bush asks.
     “Doesn’t need notes, she’s going to crowds, and she’s got the whole riff down,” Cameron says proudly.
     “She’s a good soul,” Bush says, approvingly.
     “She’s having fun, too,” Cameron offers.
     “She’s a really good soul,” Bush repeats.
     Cameron later responded by saying, “It was an unfortunate piece of editing in the movie that gave a far worse impression than the reality.” Greenwalt replied by releasing the entire pre-interview clip, in which Cameron goes on about his high school and college basketball career.
     “Where was this?” Bush asks.
     “Bates College,” Cameron replies.
     “Sure, I know Bates,” Bush responds.
     “I was uh, well, Lewiston, just north of Kennebunkport,” Cameron says helpfully, referring to the site of the Bush family’s traditional summer retreat.
     “Sure, I know Bates. Bates is a fabulous school. No, I know Bates. It’s a great school,” Bush says approvingly.
     A post-screening conference call aimed to energize people for further action, including a petition drive supporting a complaint to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Fox’s “deceptive practices in the advertising and marketing of cable television programming”—specifically, “the slogan and mark ‘Fair and Balanced’”
     “I’m mad as hell and I want to do something about it,” said San Pedro retiree Bill Robeson, who took a copy of the complaint home with him. Dozens more left with copies of the petition.

FTC comments can be made online at MoveOn.org. “Outfoxed” opens theatrically at the Laemmle Fairfax theatre on August 6. www.newshounds.us tracks Fox News on a daily basis.