Media analysis

While “straight to DVD” remains a death knell for many Hollywood films, it has led to phenomenal success for Outfoxed — Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, a documentary that accuses Fox News of manipulating public perception of current events through biased and willfully inaccurate reporting.

Even without mass marketing, word of mouth about this stab at conservative journalism has propelled Outfoxed to number one on Amazon’s best seller list. The film’s director and producer Robert Greenwald, in association with MoveOn.org, is relying on a grassroots system of nation-wide house parties and gatherings to spread the buzz about the documentary, rather than relying on a theatrical release.

Only five days after its release, Outfoxed reached over 25,000 people across the country at house parties organized by MoveOn.org. On Wednesday, over 20 more attended a viewing at the Irvington branch of the Indianapolis Public Library. The viewing was sponsored by Public Access of Indianapolis as part of the New Citizens Watch Series, a program designed to raise awareness of and participation in the democratic process.

Cheers and laughs from Wednesday’s audience proved that, if nothing else, the film does what it is intended to do: entertain and outrage those who believe that Fox News has gone too far in its advocacy of the Republican agenda. Many segments — most notably the inflammatory Bill O’Reilly’s confrontation with a liberal anti-war activist — are memorable or downright frightening.

Unfortunately, the film does little to counter the obvious arguments of the indignant right. A justified plea for Fox News to live up to its signature “Fair and Balanced” tagline is lost among self-indulgent, if amusing, “gotcha” segments that do little more than show that journalists often fall victim to trite, cliché phrases and hyperbole. Perhaps the lowest blow comes from an accusation that the popular Fox News commentators Hannity and Colms are inherently unbalanced because the thinner, darker Colms is less attractive than the “all-American” Hannity.

Overall, the film suffers most from an acute case of “do as I say and not as I do,” relying exclusively on studies and testimony from liberal organizations, commentators and ex-Fox News employees while completely neglecting any arguments for — or comments from — the opposition. According to spokesperson Irena Briganti, Fox News was never contacted to make any statements for the film itself and was given only 24 hours to comment on the documentary before its release. The lack of adequate representation for the right is especially ironic as the film attempts to document the failure of Fox news to — of all things — adequately represent the other side.

In an otherwise scathing study by the liberal media watchdog group FAIR, analysis of more than a year of coverage showed that Republican commentators on the popular Fox news show Special Report With Brit Hume outnumbered Democrats by more than five to one. Unfortunately, the documentary itself is less “fair and balanced” than it claims Fox News to be.

While some proponents of the film, such as its supporters on the Amazon.com consumer reviews page, see the lack of support for the opposition as a case of “MoveOn.org reports; we decide,” Greenwald’s obvious distaste for conservative politics leads to many presuppositions about how the news should be covered. While Outfoxed points out the large amount of positive news Fox reports from Iraq, conservatives would argue that most other news organizations show liberal bias by reporting only on the bad. Outfoxed disparages a Fox segment which pointed out that casualty rates among the troops are similar to current casualty rates in California. Conservatives would argue that the statistics were accurate and fair.

While the grassroots distribution of the film is refreshing, especially in the aftermath of Michael Moore’s cinematic behemoth Fahrenheit 9/11, it seems that Outfoxed ends up preaching to the choir, doing more to rally spirits before the election than make any real dent in conservative ideologies.