Outfoxed Before Watching the Documentary

Outfoxed

Before watching the documentary about Fox News entitled "Outfoxed," I considered myself immune to the effects of the Fox network. I assumed that if I did not watch Fox News and did not rely upon it as a source of information, then I was not subject to its biases. However, I realized that Fox News has a profound effect in determining the level of discourse in the media as a whole, through a kind of spill-over effect. Even if a respectable news outlet condemns Fox for making an outrageous allegation, that news show is still giving coverage to Fox News, and sowing doubts in the viewer's mind that 'where there is smoke there must be fire.'

Fox News' tendency to attribute its own conservative, slanted views to the American public at large as a collective can be seen in its rumor-mongering statements that 'some people say' regarding the advocacy of a certain outrageous position, which creates the idea that the viewer should side with the 'common sense' of 'some people' -- i.e. The Fox news network. For an individual to have to respond 'no, I am not a terrorist, despite what some people say,' no matter how absurd the allegation raises the question in some minds: What if he is indeed a terrorist? With a similar persuasive technique, Fox uses "Ultra-liberal" as an insult, so it is assumed that the impressionable viewer 'must' understand that liberal is evil, or else he or she is foolish. Guests who disagree with the host like Bill O'Reilly are called stupid, or told to "shut up," again suggesting that intelligent people should agree with the host. When pressed by the makers of the documentary as to why he so often said 'shut up,' O'Reilly angrily replied that he had never told a guest, such as an 'out' gay high school, to shut up outright, merely shut up about his sexuality, as if this distinction was an important point and not just as silencing as saying 'shut up' to the young man.

Fox News has lowered the standards of general media journalism, which before had to show at least some veneer of objectivity to be considered respectable. The documentary depicted Fox employees talking about how they were forced to push a "right-wing" agenda or fear losing jobs. When headquarters sent a memo, suggesting that certain issues and points-of-views had to be expressed by reporters, this was considered marching orders, not a point of debate. Media executives not journalists were in control at Fox and determined the on-air content. Demonstrating that no news is free from engineering by the production team, the documentary revealed that Republicans made up of 83% of the interview subjects on Fox, and only weaker liberal voices were asked as guests, to serve as punching bags rather than as advocates of an alternative point-of-view.

As a final indignity, during the 2004 Presidential Campaign, the Fox network openly campaigned for Bush, daily attacking John Kerry's positions and presenting Republican-generated questions about the Democrat's character and war service without any question of their veracity. Even if someone does not watch Fox News, in short, they may have to suffer in a nation governed by a man elected under a dubious electoral system, where partisan news is presented as real news, without disclosure of the network's biases. The network even declared Bush the winner in the notoriously close elections of 2000 and 2004 before the official results had been released, perhaps biasing potential voters and at very least creating the perception that Bush was commander-in-chief before his status was official. It would be fine if Fox admitted its bias, but it did not, and many viewers unwittingly fell under its sway.