Fox gets outfoxed

So nice to see Fox "News" getting the reception it deserves as it works to discredit the protests in Wisconsin.

When a media outlet consciously chooses to be a propaganda organ for one side in a conflict, there's nothing wrong with the other side doing its best to thwart their machinations.




  • http://profile.typepad.com/dbrutus TM Lutas

    If you think that Fox couldn’t have avoided the shouted protests with its live shots, you are not using your imagination very well. It’s not a hard technical matter to just put up a camera in the capitol and put the reporter in a room with a blue screen. There’s no law that Fox cameras have to have any identifying marks.
    A smarter question is why is Fox provoking the protest against them? They are constructing a narrative, successfully in my view, where the protestors marginalize themselves in the eyes of the middle-of-the-road people who will occasionally tune in to Fox but watch other channels as well.
    The left, especially the hard left, is so wrapped up in its own world that they don’t see how they are hurting themselves. They are, and badly.

  • http://akramsrazor.typepad.com svend

    I thought of you when I posted that. I figured you’d probably have a different take.
    Your reading of the situation is interesting. It did occur to me that many of Fox’s viewers would find the scene off-putting vis-a-vis the protesters rather than Fox’s journalistic pretensions. Perhaps for those already deeply hostile to organized labor, those scenes might be galvanizing and result in even stronger opposition to the protesters’ efforts, but I think we both know that hard-line segments of Fox’s viewership are already a lost cause–it’s not like they might’ve tipped the other way–so I doubt there would be a net change. It’ll just be an additional, minor talking point for people who’ve been scheming to destroy organized labor in America for 3 decades now.
    To the extent anything might be changed by such footage, I think some middle of the road viewers might find it disturbing that Fox is so clearly polarizing. No doubt, most viewers will intuitively understand on some level that some bias against Fox is inevitable in liberal quarters, but the old adage “where there’s smoke there’s fire” often trumps other facts in people’s minds. It’s quite unusual for a major media outlet to be greeted with such obvious hostility and sense of being wronged by large numbers of people, so that can’t but at least raise some questions the minds of those who aren’t already ideologically disposed to support Fox.
    Also, visible dissent is powerful and contagious, especially when manifested among “normal” people (as North Africa is showing us these days). Most of Fox’s viewers may well be hostile to the protesters’ goals, but some people watching will be inspired to take action or get more politically involved.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/dbrutus TM Lutas

    You are right that some people will be inspired to take action or get more politically involved. It does not follow automatically that they will be on your side.
    We’re obviously both partisans and thus unreliable to judge how the center emotionally twitched to this video clip when it was broadcast. The professionals at Fox thought this was a good idea. But what do they know? They’ve just got the biggest brand in American news broadcasting.

  • http://akramsrazor.typepad.com svend

    Don’t get me wrong. I don’t imagine that the scales are going to be removed from the eyes of all sorts of Fox viewers. I just suspect that what little net effect it could have might just as easily work against them.
    Or perhaps I’m indulging in wishful thinking.
    They do have the biggest brand, I suppose. So does McDonalds in its own arena, I imagine. That doesn’t in itself mean they’re doing their job (or what should be) their job right. Markets don’t always reward quality.

  • Robert

    Fox news would be finding a way to spin their propaganda regardless of what the protesters did, and Fox viewers would be attracted to that propaganda (to varying degrees) whether or not the protesters shouted Fox down. To treat organs of propaganda with ridicule is a step forward, not backward. Partisans really don’t have an effective perch from which to understand the other side any better than so-called “hard left” or “hard right” types.