Outfoxed

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is a 2004 documentary film by progressive filmmaker Robert Greenwald that is highly critical of the Fox News Channel, and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, claiming that the channel is used to promote and advocate right-wing views.

The film says this pervasive bias contradicts the channel's claim of being "Fair and Balanced", and argues that Fox News has been engaging in what amounts to consumer fraud.

The documentary wasn't released theatrically, but was distributed in DVD format by the liberal political action group MoveOn.org, and sold online through Internet retailers such as Amazon.com (where it had been a top-seller). MoveOn.org had helped promote the DVD release by taking out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times.

The film examines the global growth of Murdoch's media enterprise and argues that having one person in control of a large media conglomerate might infringe freedom of the press. Outfoxed takes issue with several aspects of Fox News's coverage:

The lead-up to, and the aftermath of the 2003 war in Iraq.

Commentators such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity who attempt to intimidate guests with whom they disagree, such as author and activist Jeremy Glick, whose father was one of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, and who has been highly critical of the Bush administration's War on Terror.

More airtime and coverage given to Republican politicians, particularly in the Bush Administration than to Democrats.

Fox News management, including owner Rupert Murdoch and president Roger Ailes, both conservatives, control the network's content.

Editorial control from Murdoch on down to ensure which stories and issues should be covered and from a strongly conservative perspective.
Suspension or other reprisals given to reporters and producers for not promoting the channel's political point of view.

The movie is also unique in that former Fox News journalists appear in the film critiquing the methods and perceived integrity of their former employer. For example, Jon Du Pre, a former reporter for Fox News' West Coast bureau, alleged that he had been suspended by Fox News management because his live shots from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Ronald Reagan's birthday -- which Du Pre described was like a "holy day" to Fox News' hierarchy -- were not "celebratory enough."

A former Fox News military contributor, Larry C. Johnson, also claimed that he was in high demand to give on-air analysis on the War on Terror until he called into question on Hannity & Colmes whether or not the United States could fight two wars (in Afghanistan and Iraq) simultaneously, an incident after which Johnson was promptly ignored as a potential Fox News contributor.

Reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre were first asked by FOX News and later bribed, to downplay a story they had on a cancer-causing growth hormone called Posilac. The reporters decided to blow the whistle on FOX News and filed a law suit. After the ordeal was over, it was discovered in the appeals court that it's actually not against the law to falsify the "News."