Submit Response is a weblog by Jack Mottram, a “Fair” and “Balanced”
This post is also available at Leon’s new weblog!
Living in Britain, and lacking a cable or satellite connection, I don’t get to see much of Fox News. (Maybe thankfully.) The station has already been censured by Ofcom for broadcasting imflammatory material in the UK, but that’s nothing compared to some of its programming in America. A documentary called OutFoxed which investigates the channel’s bias - not just conservative, but defiantly partisan and supportive of Bush’s administraition - might be stating the obvious: corporate news media favours those who pass bills which help them (no shit, Sherlock). But what’s horrific about it is the way in which Fox (motto: Fair and Balanced) and its presenters such as Bill O’Reilly equate any questioning of the Republican/Neo-con agenda with unqualified support for al-Qaeda and every other filthy terrist stalking the land (well, I say every other terrist; what I mean is every other terrist with brown skin). This clip from Outfoxed (16mb download; worth every minute) is an analysis of an interview by O’Reilly with Jonathan Glick, whose father, a Port Authority worker in Manhattan, was killed on September 11, 2001. Apart from the fact that O’Reilly says to Glick that he’s “done more for victims of 9/11 than you ever have”, apart from the fact that O’Reilly accuses Glick of saying that Bush orchestrated the attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, apart from the fact that Glick is ordered out of the studio in case O’Reilly beats the shit out of him, it’s interesting for the fact that here - on prime time television - is a presenter telling someone whose father has just been murdered in a brutal attack that he has no right to speak: O’Reilly continually tells Glick to “shut up” before saying “cut his mic; I’m not gonna dress you down any more” when Glick starts to talk about how the American government funded Osama bin Laden when he was part of the mujahideen in Afghanistan, fighting against the USSR.
Yes, Fox are an easy target, and yes, their anchors are foaming-at-the-mouth nutjobs. But you know the scary thing? They’re the apparent antidote to the supposedly liberal media in the US. That would be the same “liberal” media which swallowed whole the claims of the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had WMD, the “liberal” media which swallowed whole the lies peddled by a possible Iranian agent in order to invade Iraq.
Once again, it’s not like this is anything approaching a surprise. But it’s worth reflecting on just how vitriolic Fox is when it comes to maintaining the Bush status quo; can you imagine someone like Jeremy Paxman or Nicholas Witchell telling the grieving son of a terrorist bombing that they’re not qualified to speak about the fact that the IRA killed their father?
yup, thank god for the british media (words that should only be muttered when comparing ourselves to Fox News)
Posted by badgergirl at 10am on 22.07.04