Democratic propaganda lacks credibility

Within the first few minutes of "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," most of the film's credibility is shot. This new documentary takes aim at the Fox News Network and does so with a lack of professionalism. With overly-dramatic music playing, director Robert Greenwald makes an odd decision to hold on a shot of a poorly-made graphic for nearly 10 seconds. Seriously, all of the graphics and scene transitions look like they are made in Microsoft PowerPoint. I was just waiting for the star-wipe to come on in. \nAlthough the the graphics aren't a major part of the movie, they're indicative of a larger problem with this film -- technical sloppiness. You can tell all of the archive footage was taped on someone's VCR and then ripped to the movie because some of the screens shake and the sound is off sometimes. The editing is horrible, which is the most important thing when it comes to making a good documentary. Editing together shots of the phrase "Fair and Balanced" to Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry" just isn't effective after the two minute mark. The bonus features on this DVD are lame. A behind-the-scenes feature and a movie trailer hardly add any additional entertainment.\nThe real strength in this film comes down to quality of the interviews. Walter Cronkite and Al Franken make brief appearances while former Fox News employees vent about the right-wing slant pushed by management. Some good arguments are made, mostly by the people at FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting), but many of these observations could be made about CNN, MSNBC or other news sources. Plus, it seems mostly journalism majors or news junkies would be really interested in most of this content. \nThe film also brings up the same old arguments about why Fox News is biased, such as selection of guests, constant editorializing, an overwhelming use of pundits and Rupert Murdoch's own political leanings. All of these arguments have been made by many people before and are nothing new to anyone who would want to watch this documentary. It seems all of the astute points could make up 10 to 15 minutes, and the directors had a hard time stretching the movie to 78 minutes, so they filled the movie with meaningless montages. \nOverall, this film is a nice effort, but it seems like it was made by high school or college students. If it wasn't for their legal battles with Murdoch, I doubt we'd hear about this film.