Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004)

Fox News is Run of the Mill Now!

For all the complaints about Fox News, the other networks have become just as bad in promoting the left as Fox promoted the right. This is where is all began, but it has expanded and grown. CNN and MSNBC have the same busy screens, arguing people without real conversation and information and stereotypes being promoted rather than real news. I think Fox started it but it has now progressed. Newspapers often depended on subscriptions for financial profit, now with most reading on the Internet, advertising is more important. Ratings and advertising rates are the profit basis for televison along with cable subscription rates. That means that corportations have less dependece on the public and more on companies. Over all journalism has been massively hurt and there doesn't seem to be an alternative. November 2, 2008

Propaganda 101

The DVD is very instructive on the most basic technique of propaganda, the repetition ad nauseum of a specific idea. The effect is stunning as the movie makers piece together a string of news clips, stretching across a period of time, with near identical messages, in many cases word for word. The readers and analysts who populate the Fox newsroom all look as if they walked off the pages of the National Enquirer, but they do have a role to play and they play it very well. They very often repeat lines, from newscast to newscast, verbatim even in different contexts such as "newscasts", interviews, opinion segments, and so on.

It's no secret that this simple technique has a very pronounced effect on the impression people have of what's important and what is not. J. A. C. Brown wrote about this in the 1950s in his Techniques of Persuasion when the memory of Nazi Germany and its use of the big lie was still fresh. As Outfoxed shows clearly, the network has these techniques down cold. September 22, 2008

Confirms what your intuition already knows about Fox.

This movie puts facts and observations, both by involved former employees, television experts, and through displaying trends that Fox quite obviously uses, to show how Fox's "news" is nothing more than an aggressive, perpetual editorial, almost entirely devoid of fact or objectivity. It makes what was already seemingly awful worse, depicting the calculated nature of it all. It gives those of us who suspected more reason to realize the changes that so many seem to want in this country. Bush politics as practiced through the news.
It includes demonstrations of pivotal media players for Fox, (i.e. Bill O'Reilly) who deliberately push a very specific presentation of their "view" of the issues. Aiming, if not to convince any one of their beliefs, to profoundly confuse the issue and obscure any information that might jeopardize their agenda's success.
It also gives some hope that we are finally seeing the truth spoken again in media, even if they had to do it (at the time this was made) through documentary. June 9, 2008

Truth Will Be Told!!!!

Here is a perfect example of why Fox News should be taken off the air ASAP. After seeing this great documentary that exposes the almost Nazi style of controling what they report and making up the news, I hope that some hacker sends this DVD to the network so the only thing that gets shown is this masterpiece. March 29, 2008

Fox News: Bull, Extra Bull and More Bull.

Outfoxed really hits the spot when it comes to exposing the corruption at Fox News. As has been pointed out by some of the other viewers, nearly all of the media in the United States is biased, lazy and scandalous. Even most small town newspapers are owned by conglomerates from far away big cities.

Outfoxed shows not only how bad Fox News itself is, but also how the creation of Fox News took a bad situation and made it many times worse. Calling it "The Fox Effect", other station staffers tell how they have noticed changes at their stations based on things Fox News has done and why those changes are bad for the American public. Outfoxed is chock full of people current and former Fox staffers who went on the record to tell the story of how their employer makes them lie for the cameras.

Outfoxed shows exactly how Fox News gives the not-often used, journalism insider term "Managed News" a whole new meaning. This DVD comes highly recommended. January 22, 2008

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