by Marilyn Justine

Created on: April 27, 2009

OUTFOXED: RUPERT MURDOCH'S WAR ON JOURNALISM (2004)

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism unashamedly attempts to demonstrate how one media empire can reject all ethics of fairness, feeding the country on right wing conservative politics disguised as neutral facts. On first view Outfoxed seems to be a shocking and brutal reminder of how society and certain individuals control what the country hears and sees.

However, reflecting on Greenwald's film (which he directed and produced), questions relating to the fairness and balance of the film itself need to be addressed.

If Fox News, a 24-hour channel, controls what is heard and seen, then surely a 77-minute documentary that condenses years of footage to illustrate its points is even more carefully constructed than Fox itself. Greenwald accompanies each and every one of his claims with carefully selected Fox footage, meticulously splicing them together in order to create a reaction from the viewer,which it certainly does.

It is an extremely interesting film, none the less, with numerous ex-Fox News employees providing informative insight, including David Brock and Jeff Cohen, who reveal how they were forced to push the "right wing" viewpoint or risk losing their jobs. Surely they can't all be making these stories up, can they?

Greenwald has clearly done his homework with immense preparation in order to make this film. He had made particularly sure that the producers, reporters, bookers and writers he interviews all have their say about how awful it was to work for Fox. Anonymous ex-employees who do not want to be shown for fear of their careers also add a splash of mystery and drama to the proceedings, making the audience wonder who they are.

Therefore although Fair and balanced' is the Fox News' catchphrase under fire in this documentary, exposing the news channel to be nothing more than Bush propaganda, these words can't be applied to the film itself either. The fact that it too is constructed by being cut and pasted to suit Greenwald's needs is all too clear at the conclusion of Outfoxed.

This is a shocking insight into the world of television and the manipulative methods that it can sometimes employ in order to 'win viewers' and influence people. The construction of this 'documentary' itself is laughable since there seems to be no such thing as 'reality' TV, only a version of reality that deves into the gross commercialism of fantasy and make believe.

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