Saving the Henhouse of Democracy

Last night I saw the documentary Outfoxed , a thorough and meticulous deconstruction of how FOX NEWS uses its power to manipulate the news, and deliberately shape the political culture in America. I saw it at one of an estimated 3100 house parties staged across the country by MoveOn.org. I saw most of the movie standing up in a crowded room with no air conditioning, but the party was a great time-- good food, good talk, and people with the good taste to laugh at my Katherine Harris joke. When it was over, I was pleasantly surprised that no one had asked me to make a donation to anything (Other than my time, and my signature to a petition urging legal action against FOX using the sloagan "Fair and Balanced", presumably for false advertising.)

Compared to that other political documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, Outfoxed is certainly less entertaining, but perhaps even more essential. This is a 77 minute seminar in media literacy. Everyone needs to do whatever they have to do to see it. A DVD or VHS copy can be obtained, quite reasonably, here.

The nice thing about owning a copy would be that you could hit the pause button whenever you'd had enough of Bill O'Reilly, or maybe just fast-forward past him if you felt the need. There was a lot of talk last night about boycotts and letter-writing campaigns aimed at the FOX NEWS network-- but if it were up to me, I would have us focus all of our slings and arrows on Bill O'Reilly himself. Outfoxed proves that you can build a persuasive case that Fox News is biased in 77 minutes, but it would only take a minute of film clips to prove conclusively that Bill O'Reilly lies like hell. An organized campaign to pressure FOX NEWS to take O'Reilly off the air by exposing his numerous and well-documented lies could cause Fox a lot embarrassment, because it would force them to defend him, or to not defend him. Would a major news organization actually put itself on record as saying that O'Reilly isn't a habitual liar? It's time to make someone the poster boy for all these shameless blowhards who simply lie at will in the public eye and somehow think that they have impunity because they have the balls to do it. And the best part would be watching him react.

How hard can it be to expose a man who lies outrageously on camera for a living as an outrageous liar? He's Humpty Goddamn Dumpty, and all he needs is a well-timed and well co-ordinated shove.