G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
Ignore Fox: Attacking O'Reilly Only Encourages Him
By Danny Schechter
Created Oct 3 2007 - 9:44am
I was at the opening party for the Fox News Channel, in a studio complex
carved out of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp headquarters on Sixth Avenue in
just 16 weeks. I wanted to videotape the event but we were denied access and
had the only crew outside, a distance from the entrance, to document who was
there. I was surprised that top network anchors including Barbara Walters
and Walter Cronkite were among those who responded to the fancy invite to
pay respects to the Evil Empire and what we all then thought would be, as
advertised, a News Channel.
Not long afterwards I was back to cover a protest rally during the 2000
election with Mark Crispin Miller and other speakers--I may have been one of
them-berating the biased coverage of the election later won or stolen by
George W Bush, depending on your point of view. A Bush cousin was actually a
leader of FOX's election night team and is credited with quickly calling the
election for W who, in the end, "won," it is said by 537 votes. (That is if
you forget the uncounted and invalidated ballots.)
The protest was hardly a major event--and not covered by anyone but Fox. In
fact, Fox "topper" Roger Ailes put up a "Welcome Protestors" message on
their electronic headlines sign, and sent interns out with coffee. He knew
what we didn't--that Fox deliberately courts controversy, welcomes it, needs
it, and uses it as a way to mobilize its target audience--the rightwing GOP
base--by projecting the perception that FOX was successfully pissing off the
dreaded "liberals."
It was a deliberate and ultimately successful strategy. It was part of the
shift in our media away from the pretense of objectivity into being a
deliberately politicized and polarizing political organ, an arm of right
wing politics and a tool to reinforce right wing policies in the GOP and
Administration. We saw how the whole media spectrum, not just Fox, later
rallied viewers behind the war on Iraq - many channels then sought to
"outfox Fox."
It quickly became clear that FNC was not a News Channel but a Views
Channel--more precisely, a One View channel. All the debates and controversy
were engineered into a format modeled on right wing talk radio to attract
audience and assure an impact. This intent was obvious to insiders in the TV
industry but missed by many critics who have spent endless time and energy
in denouncing Fox and its star Bill O'Reilly for not being what they never
set out to be.
Fox was created to be agenda driven, ideologically oriented and
spin-directed. It has borrowed its formats from TV's most successful format,
wrestling, which is scripted to generate more heat than light. Many of the
news and opinions expressed on talk radio or Fox News have little to do with
"facts" or truth.
In a polarized political environment, we have moved into a world where facts
are selective "message points" only used to buttress arguments. At a time
when the fact-based information order has been largely replaced by a "faith
based" system, viewers believe what they hear or see based on their
identification with the news outlet or a news personality they trust.
In many cases, so-called "enhanced" media is being used to mobilize
"friendlies" to use "their facts" to pressure politicians to vote their way.
But what's been the response on the progressive side? To build their own
media capable of doing on the left what the Foxoids are doing on the right?
Nah. Support independent media outlets or new approaches to news? Nope. With
some exceptions thrown up by commercial media -- the rise of comedian Jon
Stewart who is not a journalist, the emergence of a sports reporter turned
political commentator Keith Olbermann, the performances of a libertarian
comic named Bill Maher on HBO, or a comedian and failed talk show host Al
Franken on Air America, and maybe the financing of the Huffington Post which
just hired a CBS network executive to run it -- there has been no attempt to
build a competing network. Meanwhile, little has been said about the
rightward drift of PBS. And why are independent perspectives only allowed
when comedians utter them?
Bashing Fox and O'Reilly only encourages them. It feeds right into their
strategy. They love it. And so, it seems, do many on the left who would
rather rant against Fox and Big Bad Bill then examine the newsflow on the
big netwoks. For example, who protested 60 Minutes adoring portrait of
Clarence Thomas last Sunday? Is O'Reilly a racist is the latest go-around.
It diverts us from important issues and understanding--and attempting to
change media AS A SYSTEM.
So we have had endless go-arounds on O'Reilly's latest contrived spat over
comments about eating at a Harlem restaurant. There have been acres of
endless articles about this non-event, even on the Mediachannel.org site I
edit [1]. It seems as if it is an easier subject to mouth off about than
more important issues. Al Sharpton must love it.
But with what end? These accusations just encourage O'Reilly to pose as a
victim of character assassination. They don't influence the fans he panders
to. The Chicago Trib's Clarence Page, maybe the leading nation's Black
columnist, asks, "Does ignorance about race make you a rascist?"
He then answers his own question: "No, ignorance about race might not make
you a racist. It only makes you ignorant. That's why I think Mr. O'Reilly
deserves a break. When someone is ignorant, you should try to teach him.
Instead, a lot of otherwise good-hearted, fair-minded and charitable people
want to tar and feather Mr. O'Reilly."
I have no love for O'Reilly's patented shtick, and ignorant he's not. He is
also not educable. He's not a racist or a humanist or a journalist--just a
political propaganda tool. He knows exactly what he's doing and how to play
the larger than life TV role that he created. He can be challenged
intelligently, but why bother? I was even interviewed by him once and did
OK.
Bashing Bill gets us exactly nowhere. Criticizing him legitimates him, and
turns a loudmouth loser into a lionized personality. Trust me, his agent--he
is in show biz, not news biz--cites all these attacks as evidence of his
importance when negotiating for a higher salary. His goal is to stay in the
limelight so he can get higher lecture fees and book advances. And in this
respect, the left has become his best friend by taking him seriously. The
more he taunts, the more progressives respond without realizing they are
being used.
So let's ignore him, and tune out his blather and well-calculated outrageous
commentary. Let Fox Be Fox. Let's keep an eye on what they do. But recognize
there is not much critics can do about them. We need to build and support
our own media.
Before he played in the network big leagues he was a baseball pitcher in the
minors. Pitching himself is now what he does best. Let's not play along in a
game we are set up to lose.
_______
About author News Dissector Danny Schechter spent eight years working for
ABC News. He now edits Mediachannel.org [1]. Info on his latest film at
InDebtWeTrust.com [1]. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org [1]
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Danny Schechter
Created Oct 3 2007 - 9:44am
I was at the opening party for the Fox News Channel, in a studio complex
carved out of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp headquarters on Sixth Avenue in
just 16 weeks. I wanted to videotape the event but we were denied access and
had the only crew outside, a distance from the entrance, to document who was
there. I was surprised that top network anchors including Barbara Walters
and Walter Cronkite were among those who responded to the fancy invite to
pay respects to the Evil Empire and what we all then thought would be, as
advertised, a News Channel.
Not long afterwards I was back to cover a protest rally during the 2000
election with Mark Crispin Miller and other speakers--I may have been one of
them-berating the biased coverage of the election later won or stolen by
George W Bush, depending on your point of view. A Bush cousin was actually a
leader of FOX's election night team and is credited with quickly calling the
election for W who, in the end, "won," it is said by 537 votes. (That is if
you forget the uncounted and invalidated ballots.)
The protest was hardly a major event--and not covered by anyone but Fox. In
fact, Fox "topper" Roger Ailes put up a "Welcome Protestors" message on
their electronic headlines sign, and sent interns out with coffee. He knew
what we didn't--that Fox deliberately courts controversy, welcomes it, needs
it, and uses it as a way to mobilize its target audience--the rightwing GOP
base--by projecting the perception that FOX was successfully pissing off the
dreaded "liberals."
It was a deliberate and ultimately successful strategy. It was part of the
shift in our media away from the pretense of objectivity into being a
deliberately politicized and polarizing political organ, an arm of right
wing politics and a tool to reinforce right wing policies in the GOP and
Administration. We saw how the whole media spectrum, not just Fox, later
rallied viewers behind the war on Iraq - many channels then sought to
"outfox Fox."
It quickly became clear that FNC was not a News Channel but a Views
Channel--more precisely, a One View channel. All the debates and controversy
were engineered into a format modeled on right wing talk radio to attract
audience and assure an impact. This intent was obvious to insiders in the TV
industry but missed by many critics who have spent endless time and energy
in denouncing Fox and its star Bill O'Reilly for not being what they never
set out to be.
Fox was created to be agenda driven, ideologically oriented and
spin-directed. It has borrowed its formats from TV's most successful format,
wrestling, which is scripted to generate more heat than light. Many of the
news and opinions expressed on talk radio or Fox News have little to do with
"facts" or truth.
In a polarized political environment, we have moved into a world where facts
are selective "message points" only used to buttress arguments. At a time
when the fact-based information order has been largely replaced by a "faith
based" system, viewers believe what they hear or see based on their
identification with the news outlet or a news personality they trust.
In many cases, so-called "enhanced" media is being used to mobilize
"friendlies" to use "their facts" to pressure politicians to vote their way.
But what's been the response on the progressive side? To build their own
media capable of doing on the left what the Foxoids are doing on the right?
Nah. Support independent media outlets or new approaches to news? Nope. With
some exceptions thrown up by commercial media -- the rise of comedian Jon
Stewart who is not a journalist, the emergence of a sports reporter turned
political commentator Keith Olbermann, the performances of a libertarian
comic named Bill Maher on HBO, or a comedian and failed talk show host Al
Franken on Air America, and maybe the financing of the Huffington Post which
just hired a CBS network executive to run it -- there has been no attempt to
build a competing network. Meanwhile, little has been said about the
rightward drift of PBS. And why are independent perspectives only allowed
when comedians utter them?
Bashing Fox and O'Reilly only encourages them. It feeds right into their
strategy. They love it. And so, it seems, do many on the left who would
rather rant against Fox and Big Bad Bill then examine the newsflow on the
big netwoks. For example, who protested 60 Minutes adoring portrait of
Clarence Thomas last Sunday? Is O'Reilly a racist is the latest go-around.
It diverts us from important issues and understanding--and attempting to
change media AS A SYSTEM.
So we have had endless go-arounds on O'Reilly's latest contrived spat over
comments about eating at a Harlem restaurant. There have been acres of
endless articles about this non-event, even on the Mediachannel.org site I
edit [1]. It seems as if it is an easier subject to mouth off about than
more important issues. Al Sharpton must love it.
But with what end? These accusations just encourage O'Reilly to pose as a
victim of character assassination. They don't influence the fans he panders
to. The Chicago Trib's Clarence Page, maybe the leading nation's Black
columnist, asks, "Does ignorance about race make you a rascist?"
He then answers his own question: "No, ignorance about race might not make
you a racist. It only makes you ignorant. That's why I think Mr. O'Reilly
deserves a break. When someone is ignorant, you should try to teach him.
Instead, a lot of otherwise good-hearted, fair-minded and charitable people
want to tar and feather Mr. O'Reilly."
I have no love for O'Reilly's patented shtick, and ignorant he's not. He is
also not educable. He's not a racist or a humanist or a journalist--just a
political propaganda tool. He knows exactly what he's doing and how to play
the larger than life TV role that he created. He can be challenged
intelligently, but why bother? I was even interviewed by him once and did
OK.
Bashing Bill gets us exactly nowhere. Criticizing him legitimates him, and
turns a loudmouth loser into a lionized personality. Trust me, his agent--he
is in show biz, not news biz--cites all these attacks as evidence of his
importance when negotiating for a higher salary. His goal is to stay in the
limelight so he can get higher lecture fees and book advances. And in this
respect, the left has become his best friend by taking him seriously. The
more he taunts, the more progressives respond without realizing they are
being used.
So let's ignore him, and tune out his blather and well-calculated outrageous
commentary. Let Fox Be Fox. Let's keep an eye on what they do. But recognize
there is not much critics can do about them. We need to build and support
our own media.
Before he played in the network big leagues he was a baseball pitcher in the
minors. Pitching himself is now what he does best. Let's not play along in a
game we are set up to lose.
_______
About author News Dissector Danny Schechter spent eight years working for
ABC News. He now edits Mediachannel.org [1]. Info on his latest film at
InDebtWeTrust.com [1]. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org [1]
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson