Monday, January 26, 2009

'Outfoxed' is more like 'Out of Touch'

While viewing the documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism I could not help but keep saying to myself "Is this guy for real"? I had viewed the documentary when it originally debuted five years ago in 2004, but seeing it again made me realize several things.
I feel that within the past few years the truth about Murdoch's strong right-wing propaganda has become much more recognized around the world. Before, there were critics and skeptical people who did not realize that such a strong corporate news channel was possible of such strong media bias.
You can clearly see from the documentary what issues and events have led me to such strong accusations against the FNC, but you could simply perform a content analysis of any of their news broadcastings or printed text- and see that they are a very conservative corporation.
In the documentary, many of the interviewers described Murdoch of robbing them of 'true journalism' when there was set instructions and rules to what could be aired.
That leads me to the question well, what is true journalism? True journalism to me is being able to follow a lead or news story that is occurring whether it be right-wing, left-wing, or even blue-wing. But, journalists are able to catch the story and SHARE it to the public audience, because they have a right to know. Audiences have a right to be shown unbiased news, because no matter what political affiliation is involves- it is affecting us all.
So, when Fox News airs and their logo 'Fair and Balanced' floats across the television screen, I cannot help but wonder how they can stand by that logo proudly. Another example I would like to add to this right-wing conspiracy is - The night of the 2008 United States Presidential Election, and win of Barack Obama (woo-hoo!) I turned to the Fox News Channel to only see the airing story of sadness. Fox News was airing a segment on how sad it was for John McCain to lose. I understand losing is not a happy time, however, this atmosphere never changed. The channel never showed any coverage of Barack Obama winning (hello Fox, He is OUR NEW PRESIDENT ya know).
Thus saying, it is very sad that we are subject to such a biased news. But, as shown in the documentary it is not always the journalists or anchors fault for this. They have been ordered with what they can say and how they can say it, because Rupert Murdoch has not entered the 21st Century yet (EXCEPT FOR SHEPPARD SMITH) who may be equally as bad as Rupert, but we'll save that for a later time!
However, many viewers are catching on and hopefully it is only a matter of time before the channel must comply.

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