The Wife and I attended a viewing party for Outfoxed this evening at Jon’s. Thanks once again to him and his wife for hosting it, especially since they just got done moving in to their apartment this weekend. I’m sure he’ll have some pictures and notes on his site as well. We had to leave earlier than we would’ve liked so that we could get the kids home to bed.
We watched the DVD, listened to the post-viewing conference call and then participated in a discussion afterwards. I’m horrible with names, but there were some really cool people there and we all resolved to try and do more of these sorts of things. I did recognize Adina, who plugged austinbloggers and filled us in on some more of what she’s been doing with electronic voting. There was also a guy who had participated in the Dean campaign during the Iowa caucuses and someone else who had been a reporter for the Statesman for a time.
The film didn’t really tell me anything that I didn’t already know about Fox. I thought it was good that the overall message was to speak out against corporate-owned media in general, not just Fox. The media consolidation over the last 30 years is something that should frighten all of us. Radio, newspapers, and TV are all controlled these days by a very small number of huge corporations whose main interest isn’t to be journalists, but to make money.
The film also pointed out some of Fox’s more glaring instances of being less than fair and balanced, namely the Jeremy Glick incident and a ridiculous comparison of the likelihood of being killed in Iraq vs. California which is still on their website.
Some of the groups involved in the film are bringing a lawsuit to disallow Fox’s trademark on the phrase "Fair and Balanced" under the reasoning that it’s a phrase that should be available to anyone and that they, in particular, are anything but fair and balanced.
If you want to check out more about what you can do, check out Alternet and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) among many others that are linked via the Outfoxed site. We intend to secure a copy of the DVD to share with friends who missed out on the viewing. Drop me an e-mail if you’re interested in seeing it.