The Fox-Haters Upside-Down World

Is there anything funnier to watch than the Left suddenly discovering the virtues of journalistic objectivity? Liberals arrogantly have ruled the news media roost for decades, regularly demeaning conservative ideas and leaders in their ongoing quest for progress and enlightenment.

But now that Fox News Channel is on the scene, dominating the cable news scene and showing America that TV news can be something different than the suffocating consensus of the liberal establishment, the left is in a panic. Objectivity is needed! Democracy itself is in danger!

When Fox News debuted in 1996, liberals couldnt contain their laughter at what they considered a sophomoric challenge to the dominant media. Then, Fox became a pest, the proverbial gnat that wouldnt go away. Ultimately almost overnight Fox overtook its cable competitors and became king of the hill. Fox became a menace on the media landscape that should have been aborted before birth, a blatantly biased and bullying blight on America.

Thats the sour theme behind Outfoxed, a new Michael Mooresque documentary funded and circulated by the radical lefties at MoveOn.org and the so-called Center for American Progress. A summary of its thesis comes very near the films end when John Nichols of The Nation proclaims that Fox must be stopped because it limits and narrows political discourse.

Welcome to the Fox-haters upside-down world: decades of liberal TV news unanimity represented diversity, and a conservative alternative is the arrival of a narrowed spectrum of opinion? The advent of a network that doesnt treat conservatism like an infectious disease is a danger to democracy?

Foxs popularity is a result of a public that feels the other networks have been playing with dirty tricks and double standards in political journalism for decades, and see the fair and balanced product delivered by Brit Hume and Co. as real news instead. The leftist theorists interviewed in this film hate that fair and balanced motto, not just because they believe Fox doesnt live up to the pledge, but because they dont believe in it. They think conservative dissent is a clear and present danger to the socialist "paradise" they want to inflict on society.

The films subtitle is Rupert Murdochs War on Journalism. Here we go again. Liberals said the same thing about philanthropist and newspaper publisher Dick Scaife, who somehow waged war on journalism by trying to fund journalistic investigations of the Clinton scandals. Where were they when Ted Turner was at the helm of CNN portraying the Soviet Union in comically glowing terms? What about Pinch Sulzbergers Masters-bashing antics at the New York Times? That list goes on and on, seemingly unnoticed, but when one perceived conservative takes the reins of a media outlet, the horror!

It doesnt help matters that Robert Greenwald, the creator of Outfoxed, is a very sloppy amateur at the science of media analysis. Actually, its worse than that. This film is so dishonest that it leads one to conclude that liberals attacking Fox just cant get the job done honestly. Fox must be picked apart as if everything it does has never been done a million times over by the liberal competition.

For example, Greenwald uncovers memos from Fox vice president John Moody telling Fox reporters how they should approach the events of the day as if Peter Jennings or other network brass havent been doing the very same thing for decades. Former ABC reporters Bob Zelnick and Peter Collins could make a nice film about that.

Greenwald also thinks its outrageous that Fox anchors use the formulation some people say to ask liberals about their critics. That complaint might have merit if Greenwald would also consider that this device is used by every other single news network as a way of questioning politicians.

A classic example of the films inanity is an incredibly silly attack on Bill OReilly because he said he almost never said shut up to guests. Greenwald goes about disproving this trite little point, but after finding an example or two, he ruins it all by gratuitously adding clips where OReilly used the words shut up in commentaries, or in questions where he wasnt telling a guest to shut up, but asking the guest if someone else should shut up. Now hes not making a point. Hes un-making it.

And do we really need to point out that OReilly isnt a reporter, and therefore has nothing to do with the news product of Fox?

The liberal media elites double standard in journalism extends to this shoddy film, which theyve promoted as another noteworthy brick in the wall of anti-Bush anger. If conservatives ever tried to make a documentary about the liberal media this amateurish, it would either never be mentioned, or it would be pounded until it was flat as a pancake, and deservedly so.