Outfoxed not an accurate portrayal

It's the scourge of the liberal media. It's passed over by the Left as a bunch of conservative hacks looking to glorify the current administration. And in spite of boundless denigration from its peers, it wins every hour of the week in the Nielsen Media Research ratings war; it is "America's Newsroom." It is FOX News Channel.

This past summer as a FOX News intern, I caught a glimpse of how the leading cable news network operates. What I found was validating, frustrating, fascinating and inspiring -- sometimes all at once. I had my catharsis each day of the internship. So with the debut of Outfoxed, an independent film released directly to DVD that accused FOX News of political bias and news distortion, I didn't feel the obligation to immediately choose a side.

Though I wasn't a full-time employee, I did get a solid idea as to how the company runs, what makes news and how that news is brought to the air. Thus, I add a bit of legitimacy to my defense of FOX News and the gripes I have with the efforts that seek to debunk it. Tim Rutten of The Los Angeles Times called FOX News "the most blatantly biased major American news organization since the era of yellow journalism." Evidently, The LA Times sits at the pinnacle of fairness in journalism.

Director and Producer Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed recently added fuel to the inferno. The film, a documentary financed by both MoveOn.org's Political Action Committee and the Center for American Progress, takes aim at Rupert Murdoch and his alleged pack of Republican toadies dutifully waiting at his heels.

I'll set the record straight. As I hinted at earlier, I didn't always enjoy my time at FOX News. I certainly experienced days when I would stare at the clock longingly, talk back when perhaps I shouldn't have, bear responsibility for errors I didn't commit and exit the news corporation building on the brink of hysterics, and with enough anger to supply schoolchildren with a year's worth of nightmares.

But the exasperation always arose from particular people with whom I worked, and never from the network itself or its presentation of the news. While my tasks were not always hands-on or visually stunning, they were generally important to the network and ultimately gratifying. I'm nobody's apologist. And FOX News could really give a rat's tail as to what I write about it in The Daily Pennsylvanian, anyway.

With all that said, I've got some bones to pick with Outfoxed, which premiered in the illustrious living room near you this July. Many media commentators, including The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, have pointed out various inconsistencies in the footage that was chosen. Greenwald takes the Michael Moore approach of splicing together clips of footage -- used without FOX News' permission -- to make the cable network seem like the Republican Party equivalent of Al-Jazeera. There's nothing inherently wrong with criticism, but there is a problem when, in the accuser's view, using an intentionally deceptive forum to do it is deemed a sound methodology. Take off the gloves and have a clean fight; that would be all too easy, yet in Greenwald's case, all too impossible.

Mum was the word at FOX News upon the documentary's release. We weren't prohibited from discussing it behind the cameras, but overall it wasn't worth the airtime. Your World host Neil Cavuto joked off the air, "Apparently, I have a role in it."

All jests aside, Outfoxed has some seriously misleading material. Conveniently absent from many cut-and-paste scenes is the benefit of attributions and context. Consider the scene where FOX News' chief political correspondent, Carl Cameron, says to the camera, "If you want to destroy jobs in this country, you raise taxes." That's quite a bomb to hurl. However, Cameron -- who was praised by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) for his objectivity in reporting -- was quoting Secretary of Commerce Don Evans.

How about the part where one of the anchors refers to former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke's book as "an appalling act of profiteering." Actually, that was Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). You wouldn't have known that just from watching the movie -- but Greenwald knew all along.

Greenwald, who rejects the notion of liberally biased media, also employs a handful of morning editorials from John Moody, FOX News' senior vice president of news editorial. I read those editorial memos every day for three months, during which time some big stories broke -- the death of former President Ronald Reagan, American hostage Paul Johnson Jr.'s beheading, Saddam Hussein on trial, the Democratic National Convention and a fiery political race. And all FOX News shows prepared their rundowns as they saw fit. Editorials were blueprints, not marching orders.

Citing one memo, Greenwald showed Moody writing about war coverage: "It won't be long before some people start to decry the use of "excessive force.' We won't be among that group." The point was to advise journalists not to become shrill and jump to conclusions without proper justification. It isn't the media's job to make quantum leaps, but rather a bad habit.

The criticism won't stop, and Outfoxed is just a drop in the bucket. Yet maybe, in the put-up or shut-up game of broadcasting, CNN and MSNBC will be forced to explain why they keep shedding viewers and money, while FOX News continues to expand. Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a "We report, you decide."

Michelle Dubert is a College sophomore from Closter, N.J. Department of Strategery appears on Thursdays.

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