Movie Review - Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (0/10)

Oblivious Maximus · Aug 10, 2004

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (0/10)

This should have been a companion film for "Fahrenheit 9/11", because this piece of shit is just like it. If the films director Robert Greenwald wanted to prove something, the only thing he prooved is that he is a big asshole.

For those who don't know, this "documentary" is an attempt to expose the Fox News Channel. This film is NOTHING but cut and paste propaganda. How is it cut and paste? Well, first off, the film just shows brief clips of FNC that is supossed to make the network look bad. The problem with that is that the director cuts the clips too short and dosent even show what the issue the people in the clip were discussing! Example (this is the example I posted in the TV forum): the film has a segment of clips just showing Bill O'Reilly telling people to shut up, like that's all he tells his guests to do. In one of the clips, O'Reilly is talking to a young gay student who was in serious trouble for outing himself in high school. O'Reilly asked him "Why don't you just shut up about sex, and nobody would get upset at you?" The director cut the clip, so it only shows O'Reilly saying "Why don't you just shut up?"

Another example of why this film is propaganda is the fact that the director accuses the Fox News anchors of taking marching orders, and memos of how to report the news and slant it beeing on the anchors desks right before a brodcast. Sure, FNC has a daily breefing, but EVERY network does!

What I am trying to say by this review is don't give into this outright lie of a film. Robert Greenwald calls the Fox News Channel propaganda, but he is a hypocrite, because his poorly made film is nothing but propaganda! I really think Robert Greenwald is one of Michael Moore's or Al Franken's psedonems.

0/10

Nico · Aug 11, 2004

I don't think he likes it.

LordFireworm · Aug 11, 2004

Regardless of your feelings on the movie ( I haven't seen it), Rupert Murdoch is a slippery, greedy tyrant.That's just general knowledge.

Oblivious Maximus · Aug 11, 2004

LordFireworm said:
Regardless of your feelings on the movie ( I haven't seen it), Rupert Murdoch is a slippery, greedy tyrant.That's just general knowledge.

That may be true, but the Fox News Channel is not right wing propaganda, like this movie is falsly accusing it of beeing.

TwilightSymphony · Aug 12, 2004

Cryptkeeper said:
...the Fox News Channel is not right wing propaganda, like this movie is falsly accusing it of beeing.

What are you smoking?

The channel itself is not right-wing propaganda, but certainly doesn't have any problem with spinning it out by the truck load. Rupert Murdoch is well-known for being an arch-conservative; something the writers of the Simpsons know quite well and make fun of him at every turn about it. (Last season's episode about Montgomery Burns trying to take over all the media outlets in Springfield was a direct caricature of Murdoch.) The only reason why the show hasn't been cancelled is simply because it makes FOX too much money to get rid of it.

Bill O'Reilly is certainly not known for his journalistic integrity, something that has been shown time and again by several sources. You can do a Google search and find that information. The man's a registered Republican, so don't believe his hype that he's an independent like he claims. Remember, it's not that difficult to change your political affiliation in this country. You simply need to re-register. He's also from a well-to-do family in a good neighborhood in Long Island, sent to school by a father who made $35,000 a year back when Bill was a child (adjust for inflation and you'll realize that $35,000 back then is about the equivalent of $90,000 a year today), so don't buy the lie where he says he comes from a blue collar area.

"Fair and Balanced"? I'd laugh even harder if News Corporation (the corporate arm of Rupert Murdoch that owns FOX News) didn't take this motto seriously.

Oblivious Maximus · Aug 12, 2004

I'm not smoking anything. Let's go through each of FNC's prime time anchors from 6PM, to 10PM shall we?

The host of the 6PM show, Brit Hume is a semi-conservitive. He gives his opinions and lets his guests give their opinions, with no arguments.

At 7PM, you have the Fox Report with Shepard Smith. Smith really never says what his political agenda is, he just delivers the news, and he is VERY fair!

At 8PM, the infamous O'Reilly Factor! Say what you want about O'Reilly, but he is a great debator, and he killed NY Times far left coloumnist Paul Krugmen on CNBC's Tim Russert. He pointed out that his opponet gets his anti-Bush propanganda from other propaganda sources, and he also resorted to cheep shots when O'Reilly had him backed up into a corner.

At 9PM, there's Hannity and Colmes, another group that has been unfailry criticized. Sean Hannity has been called a liar by Al Franken and that is simply not true. I have never seen one instance where he has lied on the air. Colmes on the other hand, seems to support Kerrry. The other night on his show, he cirticized the Republican Party for throwing a woman out of a pro-Bush ralley for wearing a pro-choice shirt.

At 10pm, theres Greta Van Sustren. Van Sustren is a libral (a libral on Fox, NO!). It's true. Just watch the show and listen to her view points.

A question, O'Reilly and other people at Fox have called out the people who call Fox liars and those who say it's right wing propaganda. They NEVER respond. Why won't they debate? Are they affraid that their false far-left propaganda will backfire, and the bomb-throwers will be exposed for what they are? Make up your own minds.

TwilightSymphony · Aug 13, 2004

O'Reilly has also resorted to cheap shots against people on his show, including Jeremy Glick, whose father died in the attacks of 9/11/01 on the World Trade Center. Glick signed an advertisement opposing the war in Iraq and O'Reilly invited him on the show to explain his position - which he did until O'Lie-ly...err, I mean, O'Reilly

cut him off stating, "I don't want to debate world politics with you. Glick asked, "Well, why not? This is about world politics." O'Reilly's response was, "Because, number one, I don't care what you think." Bill later told his engineer, "Cut his mic. I'm not going to dress you down anymore of of respect for your father," after telling Glick several times to "Shut up." There was also a show last week where ol' Billy was backed into a corner by one of his guests and couldn't come up with a response other than, "Shut Up!" Hardly the great debater. I've also seen O'Reilly pull the Rush Limbaugh maneuver of pulling several of his "facts" from his rectum - many of which are later proven to be false.

One instance of Sean Hannity's on-air lies: Sean Hannity continued to repeat on air of both radio and television that former President Bill Clinton was offered Osama Bin Laden by the Sudanese government. Guess what? Read the 9/11 Commission's Final Report. This has been proven a lie. You can also find it in the October 3rd, 2001 Washington Post article entitled, U.S. Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts to Capture Bin Laden or Have Him Killed, and Sandy Berger's Op-Ed piece published July 13th, 2002, entitled, Skeptical About Sudan. It's not just Franken making these statements. Sean Hannity's entire case comes from Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani-American investment banker claiming to be a middleman transmitting the offer between the U.S. and Sudan. The story from Sandy Berger - formerly National Security Advisor - and the story from Daniel Benjamin, the past director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council and (at the time of September 2003) a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. According to both, Berger had to meet Ijaz only once to determine that Ijaz was an unreliable freelancer pursuing his own financial interests of a huge stake in Sudanese oil. Berger was urged by Ijaz to lift economic sanctions against Sudan - a nation that remains a notorious sponsor of terrorism harboring such groups as al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the leading state sponsor of slavery. When US officials spoke to the Sudanese, there was no such offer, despite US pursuit of every lead and negotiations. By the way, is it merely a coincidence that Mansoor Ijaz is now working for the Fox News Channel as a foreign affairs analyst? More on Mansoor Ijaz can be read about in Daniel Benjamin's and Steve Simon's book, The Age of Sacred Terror.

As to the people not responding to the allegations about Fox being a right-wing conservative spin, it's because they probably won't be allowed to come on the air on Fox News Channel to begin with. Besides, most people already know the Murdoch agenda, anyway.

I can't speak about the other anchors because I don't watch them. I don't get home from work until 7:30 pm at the earliest and then the only show I'll watch is The Simpsons. That's provided that I actually make it home from work. I've also got band practice and writing and during the spring and fall, more school. After that, it's make supper, do some more work or school homework and get back in bed by 10:30 pm to be up by 3:30 am for work and do it all over again.

Oblivious Maximus · Aug 13, 2004

The reason O'Reilly tells alot of people to shut up is because they SPIN! An example: On a show a couple of months ago, he was debating a man defending the ACLU for defending NAMBLA, a group who wants to legalize sex betweem men and young boys. The man would not shut up about shit that had nothing to do with the issue: "They have their rights", "if gays have their rights, why can't they?". This went on for 5 minutes. The man then went on to call O'Reilly a racist and a homophobe because he is against NAMBLA. O'Reilly finally decided to cut his mic because he, and I'm sure the viewers were getting tired of this asshole talking about the rights of people who were doing things that were ILLEGAL! That fact was pointed out at leat 10 times during the iterview. But, the man was dodging all the questions and spinning the issue, and because of that, he got his mic cut.

A similar instance occured when a man defending the accuser in the Kobe case. He would not shut up about "victems rights", when Kobe hasn't even been found guilty yet!

I know it's not just Franken making theise statements, but I singled him out beacuse he is the biggest charecter assassin in the country. Just read his book. He devotes an 2 entire chapters to Fox News and Bill O'Reilly. Franken's book Lies, and the Lying Liars who Tell Them should have been his autobiography.

Another reporter (I think he was from ABC) has attacked O'Reilly for the stupidest thing. He said O'Reilly never grew up where he said he grew up (some place on Long Island, NY). This guy kept going on the air and saying "O'Reilly never grew up there". Well, one night on the Factor, O'Reilly had the deed that his father bought for the house in the Long Island neighborhood. Another lie was proven false.

Edgecrusher · Aug 13, 2004

Cryptkeeper said:
The reason O'Reilly tells alot of people to shut up is because they SPIN! An example: On a show a couple of months ago, he was debating a man defending the ACLU for defending NAMBLA, a group who wants to legalize sex betweem men and young boys. The man would not shut up about shit that had nothing to do with the issue: "They have their rights", "if gays have their rights, why can't they?". This went on for 5 minutes. The man then went on to call O'Reilly a racist and a homophobe because he is against NAMBLA. O'Reilly finally decided to cut his mic because he, and I'm sure the viewers were getting tired of this asshole talking about the rights of people who were doing things that were ILLEGAL! That fact was pointed out at leat 10 times during the iterview. But, the man was dodging all the questions and spinning the issue, and because of that, he got his mic cut.

A similar instance occured when a man defending the accuser in the Kobe case. He would not shut up about "victems rights", when Kobe hasn't even been found guilty yet!

I know it's not just Franken making theise statements, but I singled him out beacuse he is the biggest charecter assassin in the country. Just read his book. He devotes an 2 entire chapters to Fox News and Bill O'Reilly. Franken's book Lies, and the Lying Liars who Tell Them should have been his autobiography.

Another reporter (I think he was from ABC) has attacked O'Reilly for the stupidest thing. He said O'Reilly never grew up where he said he grew up (some place on Long Island, NY). This guy kept going on the air and saying "O'Reilly never grew up there". Well, one night on the Factor, O'Reilly had the deed that his father bought for the house in the Long Island neighborhood. Another lie was proven false.

You can't spell Liberal without LIE can you?

Oblivious Maximus · Aug 13, 2004

Edgecrusher said:
You can't spell Liberal without LIE can you?

Nope

TwilightSymphony · Aug 14, 2004

I'm pretty sure that the ACLU was defending the right of NAMBLA to state what they are and what they want - however, I can't imagine them condoning the actions of a bunch of pederasts. I also believe in total freedom of speech, in so long as nobody is going to get killed or injured because of it (i.e. shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater). Yes, what NAMBLA says is very shocking and offensive, yet they should be allowed to say it. This does not mean they should be allowed to act upon their impulses. I also don't agree with what the Ku Klux Klan says, but I feel they should be allowed to say it.

The Kobe Bryant case might have been talking about the fact that Kate Faber's (or however you spell her name) sexual history is being used in the Kobe case. (IMO, in her case, it should be used. The whole thing sounds fishy to me in light of her reported behavior after encounter with Kobe.) It may also be because her name was given out by Tom Leykis on his radio show, despite the "order" by the judge that the media not give out her true name. Legally, there's nothing the judge can do to keep from media from disclosing her name to the public since it's a matter of public record.

The O'Reilly Residence episode revolves around Bill's claim in the New York Observer that "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale." (See my previous post where he stated that his father "only made $35,000 a year.") See, Bill claims to be from the "Westbury section of Levittown." The problem here evolves from Mom O'Reilly, who, in an interview with the Washington Post ("The Life of O'Reilly," December 13th, 2000 edition) stated that the family regularly took vacations in Florida and that Bill attended private school and a private college. She also stated that their home was in Westbury - an affluent suburb, not the blue-collar town of Levittown. Westbury and Levittown, if you look them up on the map of Long Island, are two seperate Long Island villages, miles apart. The reporter probably wasn't claiming that Bill did not come from Westbury; I think his claim is that Bill doesn't come from a blue-collar neighborhood and that he's not the working-class straight shooter sticking up for the common man.

Profanity · Aug 14, 2004

Pretty poor movie - 2/10

Oblivious Maximus · Aug 14, 2004

TwilightSymphony said:
I don't think the guy was claiming that Bill did not come from Westbury; I think he was claiming that Bill doesn't come from a blue-collar background.

I don't think Bill ever said he came from a blue-collar background. The guy DID claim that Bill never grew up where he said he grew up. All the lies stopped when O'Reilly showed everyone the deed on the Factor.