Outfoxed

I got around to seeing this little masterpiece that dissects Fox News piece by piece. Of course, it’s not news that Fox News massively distorts the real news, and takes a consistently right wing approach to its coverage. But the really interesting parts of this film were those that covered the techniques that Fox engages to take this line – “Some people say” for example.
I think some more of this would have been good. I’d also like to see some more evidence of the impact of what Fox News has being doing, on other news networks. I suppose that these things are enormously hard to illustrate easily – you need to take a story and compare the coverage from several outlets to see any slants that are being taken. This film was a slickly and quickly edited film, and it’s hard to do that in this kind of filmic environment. Worth catching.
But a quick question. Murdoch is not known as being a good loser. In the UK he’s switched sides in the past to ensure that he backs the winner. What happens to Fox News if Kerry wins? Does the channel just shift round to attack mode, or does it try to reflect the views of the majority of the country given that they’ll have just elected a Democrat? Or does the party divide in the States vary so much from that in the UK, that you could never do an about turn in the same way as The Sun does here?
[As I type, the Republican convention is starting in New York, and BBC Parliament is taking the C-Span feed. It’s fascinating to watch un-commented on cameras just roaming around the relatively empty convention centre (it is early afternoon New York time, and the big speakers don’t get on until later in the evening when the networks may possibly show some live coverage).]


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