Fox News: Controlling What People Say

After watching “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism”, I felt that the documentary had such valid facts revealing bias opinions at Fox News, that it was hard to not agree with what was being said. From the journalists and anchors to the daily memos that were issued to the Fox News staff, there is control on news set by the people who own and manage the station. Rupert Murdoch developed Fox News as having the same values as himself, by controlling everything that Fox reports. The Fox News station portrays a conservative, ‘my way or the high way’ type of view. This is definitely shown by the daily memos that were distributed at Fox News. John Moody, who was the Senior Vice President for Fox News, wrote some of these memos. The documentary gave examples of certain memos that were written for the staff. The memos were all about telling the Fox News staff what stories they should focus on, and what stories they should not focus on. The memos also sometimes went on to clarify proper wording on certain news story, so that people ‘didn’t get the wrong idea’. These memos were attempting to completely control the news that was going to be produced by Fox News. John Moody no longer works for Fox News, but continues to work for Rupert Murdoch, which may indicate that his views are similar if not the same as Murdoch. Since these memos controlled what journalists could say, the public was never really getting all the facts. Releasing memos to tell journalists what not to reveal to the public is not allowing them to report the whole story, which is basically lying. By hiding some facts from stories and events, the public is not getting the whole truth. Any memo that tells someone to perform their job, but not fully perfect their job, is not right. A journalist’s job is to report the whole story, with all the facts and the entire truth. To view some of these memos, you can click here.

Fox News is continuing to not give all of the facts because they won’t allow their guests to finish stating opposing opinions that could be valid remarks. Most anchors that work for Fox News have a tendency to cut off their guests when they begin to go against what Fox News is reporting. Before I watched the documentary though, I never really watched Fox News. I have to say the most recent time that I did watch Fox News was when I was researching my last blog post. The post was on Obama’s decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, and the Fox News broadcast of that story was interesting to me because I didn’t find it all informative or positive. I disagree with the negative notion of this story because I find Obama’s decision very positive; I am for same-sex marriages, equal rights, and above all change. The anchor that reported the story, Megyn Kelly, was an extremely bias reporter it seemed. So I did some research on her and found that she was a similar bias and opinionated anchor as anchor Bill O’Reilly. Bill O’Reilly is a figure that is criticized hugely in the documentary simply because he argues with almost all of his guests. He continently tells them to “shut up” and is constantly cutting them off so that their opinions are not heard. The only opinions that Fox News reports on are the ones that are produced from the reporters of Fox News. If a guest on Fox News doesn’t agree with the opinions and views of the anchor, then they argue and eventually cut them off. Megyn Kelly has been known for arguing with her guests, and threatening to cut off their microphone. Kelly once reported on a story where the guest criticized Fox News as contributing to a news controversy that wasn’t real, to view the video click here.  She continued stating in the video that Fox News is seen by their viewers as the ‘least bias’, ‘fair and balanced’, and then while arguing with her guest tells him to ‘pipe down’. Fox really needs to let people voice their opinions, arguing and yelling over their guests on TV just looks childish and unprofessional. It makes me question if they are arguing simply because their guests are right, and they don't want to look stupid. Who is right? I don't think we will ever really know. It's like the quote that I have at the top of the page, "I don't know where the artificial stops and the real starts" (Andy Warhol). Maybe he was talking about art, but I think it applies to basically everything. 

On another note here is a video that I found amusing, it mocks Fox News by saying there is really only one reason that some people watch it. Apparently Fox News is known for its "Foxy" female anchors.