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Thu 22 Jul, 2004 12:40 am
Fox News is Target of Post-'Fahrenheit' Film ; Movie Tries to Show How Network Tilts Toward GOP
Record, The; Bergen County, N.J. July 13, 2004
In a season of politically confrontational movies, documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald is aiming to do to the Fox News Channel what Michael Moore is trying to do to the Bush administration with his "Fahrenheit 9/11."
A coalition of liberal-minded groups, led by the political action organizers MoveOn.org, teamed to fund "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," Greenwald's new film that portrays the cable news and opinion channel as the prime example of what's wrong with media consolidation.
Working in stealth for six months, Greenwald pieced together allegations from former Fox insiders, memos from the network's editorial chief, and extensive on-air clips taken from four months of taping the channel to lay out how Fox, in his view, aggressively promotes a Republican agenda.
His arsenal includes:
* A 2000 tape in which Fox News Channel's chief political correspondent, Carl Cameron, chats amiably with then-presidential candidate George W. Bush - just before interviewing him - about how much Cameron's wife is enjoying campaigning for the president-to- be. Such conflicts of interest aren't generally allowed at other media outlets. "My wife has been hanging out with your sister," Cameron tells Bush. "She's a good soul. She's a really good soul," Bush responds.
* Nine recent memos from John Moody, Fox's editorial chief, tersely laying out the way in which Fox's reporters and anchors are to discuss the day's news, including pro-administration developments they are to highlight, such as the economy's job growth.
* Former West Coast anchor Jon Du Pre talking about how reporters were praised when they took shots at Democrats and encouraged to report negatively on the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The anchor also said he got in trouble because his coverage of a Ronald Reagan birthday celebration wasn't sufficiently enthusiastic.
* Fox clips juxtaposed with Republican talking points to show how news anchors and opinion commentators pound home a theme throughout a day, such as a sustained attack on former White House terror chief Richard A. Clarke and a humorous portrayal of presumptive Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as "French."
Greenwald says his goal is that "everybody in America turns off Fox News, that they look at it and see it for what it is and then turn it off."
Almost from the minute Fox News Channel went on the air in 1996, critics have complained that the channel, the brainchild of News Corp. Chairman Murdoch, distorts the news and promotes a conservative agenda. Fox, whose use of the motto "Fair and Balanced" is particularly irritating to critics, counters that it merely gives equal time to voices it contends have a hard time getting heard on media outlets it considers liberal-biased.
"Outfoxed," which will have its official unveiling today in New York, so far is slated for limited screenings and a $9.95 DVD release.
It joins a spate of summer documentaries attacking the media. Among them are Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which contends that TV news has been too supportive of the Bush administration's foreign policies, and "The Hunting of the President," which criticizes newspaper coverage of the Whitewater accusations that dogged President Bill Clinton's White House.
Murdoch Will Buy Rest of Fox Shares in $7 Billion Deal
January 10, 2005
Murdoch Will Buy Rest of Fox Shares in $7 Billion Deal
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and GERALDINE FABRIKANT
New York Times
Rupert Murdoch, consolidating his global media empire in the United States, is expected to announce today that he will buy out the shareholders of his Fox properties for about $7 billion, executives involved in the deal said last night.
The deal would solidify Mr. Murdoch's control over some of the nation's most valuable media assets like the Fox broadcast network and the DirecTV satellite service and help simplify the complicated structure of his far-flung company, the News Corporation, which includes newspapers, television, film and satellite assets around the globe.
It also puts Mr. Murdoch in a better position to leverage his full ownership of the Fox Entertainment Group for future deals.
The transaction, which the board of News Corporation approved last night, would also make Mr. Murdoch's company an even more formidable media power in the United States. Mr. Murdoch, who gave up his Australian citizenship 19 years ago to become a United States citizen, recently reincorporated News Corporation in the United States and shifted its primary stock listing to the New York Stock Exchange from the Australian exchange.
"The move underscores the simplification process: Mr. Murdoch's drive to make News Corporation a simpler and more shareholder-friendly U.S. company," said Mario Gabelli, chief investment officer of Gabelli Asset Management, whose fund owns shares of both News Corporation and Fox Entertainment.
The move to bring Fox Entertainment back inside the fold of News Corporation also gives Mr. Murdoch more flexibility to wield his deal-making muscle in the United States, where he used to have to rely on the often faltering stock price of his Fox subsidiary as leverage for deals.
"This makes it easier for News Corp. to do deals. It simplifies the structure and gives it full control over the deal making process," said Harold L. Vogel, an entertainment analyst.
The timing of the transaction raises questions about the status of Mr. Murdoch's feud with John C. Malone, the chairman of Liberty Media, who raised his company's investment in the News Corporation to 17 percent in November behind the back of Mr. Murdoch, who owns a 30 percent voting stake.
Only a week later, News Corporation introduced a plan to thwart would-be hostile bidders and keep Mr. Murdoch in control of the company, which he plans to turn over to his sons: Lachlan, now deputy chief operating officer, and James, chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting, Mr. Murdoch's satellite TV company in Britain.
"The timing is confusing because we had expected Mr. Murdoch to complete a transaction with Mr. Malone before buying in Fox," said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners. A spokesman for News Corporation declined to comment.
and yet they still go on and on about the "liberal media". don't know of too many liberals (any?) who have this kind of power to control what we see, hear, and read on a consistant level.
really scary. no matter if you are a liberal or conservative or anything in between, the news is only really "news" when delivered without bias. if not it's called editorial and should be listed as such. where are walter cronkites when we need them?
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