In many respects the documentary is shaping up to be the 21st centurie's biggest form of theatrical entertainment for adults. Given the declining ability of blockbusters to generate enough revenue to even cover their distribution expenses, and the increasingly high-brow, low-gate receipt type of film winning awards and subsequent large DVD sales, the cheap-to-make and potentially massively financially-rewarding documentary could very well be the way forward for studios. As people generally trust the documentary film-maker to produce and show unedited, completely truthful material (the David Attenborough effect I suppose) it is possibly one of the few mediums left which people use to get what they believe to be 'the truth'. However, the biggest draw in documentary-land, and the one most people seem to be intent on copying, is also the one who has single-handedly destroyed the genre and laid bare the partisan politics inherent in the system. Michael Moore's shameful fictomentary's have set the blueprint for all the others who have come after him, and this disturbing pattern has been continued in Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.
Now don't get me wrong, Outfoxed has some excellent points and drives them home very well indeed. It's not quite as slickly put together as Moore's spin-heavy bullshit, but it makes up for this in choosing a genuine target and pinning onto him criticisms which are hard to refute. It doesn't matter if you live in Britain, the US, Australia or indeed anywhere else, you'll know who Rupert Murdoch and News Corp are. While he didn't pioneer using the media as his own personal soapbox he certainly took it to a new level, and has been credited with putting Presidents and Prime Ministers into, and out of, power. Through his newspapers and television stations he indeed does pump out his own propoganda to the masses 24/7, and I applaud Greenwald for taking him on. However, and this may just be me talking as a more cynical Brit, the idea that Fox News and its sister media are pro-Bush and pro-conservatism is not new. It wasn't new before Outfoxed was released in fact. That this documentary was made at all says a lot more about the people who produced, appeared in and sold it, than it does about those on the receiving end of its withering criticism.
The main issue I have with Outfoxed is not that it is wrong in its judgement, but that it feels the need to make it at all. The media in the US is, by and large, enormously liberal in both its output and the spin it places upon the news. It has been this way for decades, ever since it became more about appealing to the masses (and making money) than about presenting the news in an honest and truthful manner. The other big three, ABC, NBC and CBS, have for years been unofficial spokespeople for Democratic and left-wing interests and interest groups. They maybe weren't as blatantly obvious as Fox is in their allegiances, but they were there for all to see. Left-wing politicians and special interests often got a free ride at the expense of more conservative, right-wing candidates and beliefs. By being quiet and unchallenged they have managed to get away with it for a very long time. The success of Fox, and the rejuvenation of the Right, has shaken these foundations and given way to this kind of 'documentary'. As such it quickly becomes more about slamming Fox for being biased than about seeing why it has become that way, and how the other networks are equally to blame for the shifting of traditional news output into propoganda.
As such I cannot fault Outfoxed in its criticism of Murdoch, but I can deeply fault its rationale in hitting Fox and giving others who are just as much to blame a free pass. To anyone who sits through it with an open mind you can see why the film was made, and the special interests who produced it. Presenting news in any kind of way which may favour conservative Republicanism is sacrilege in the US media. For not following this party-line Fox has to be ridiculed and embarrassed, and in this the film is only fleetingly succesful. |
