Bowling For Truth

Another scene staged in Bowling for Columbine is the illustration of the story being told of a couple of hunters who dressed up a dog in hunting clothes, gave him a gun, and then accidentally got shot by it.

There are some trivial, rather silly details in the scene that arise from simple shoddy filmmaking. The scene shows a dog with gun on it’s back & a wounded hunter lying on the ground. We’re supposed to think we’re watching video from the accident, but several mistakes make this pretty obviously not true.

1. The dog is calmly moving around — which it wouldn’t be if a hunting rifle had just gone off over his head and blown his eardrums in.

2. The Hunter, who was in fact shot in the leg, is lying there quietly – dare I say ‘dead looking.’ (I’m reminded of the scene towards the end of Trainspotting where a kitten innocently plays around a dead character).

3. Why would someone just be standing there filming this? They would no doubt be panicking to get help or help their wounded comrade in some kind of frenzy — not calmly video taping the whole thing.

So the scene is staged. So what. The emphasis is on truth here – you’re allowed to reenact things in documentaries – what’s the big deal?

Well, what’s more important is the fact that in reality, the Darwin Award winning hunters had tried to take a photo with a still camera, and did not have video (1). So in fact – this is no reenactment…but a fabrication. Moore films the scene with a shaky hand held cam to create the illusion of a home movie and even goes as far as to put digits in the (viewers) right-hand top and bottom of the screen as if you are looking through a home movie camera live (another subliminal trick that makes you think this is a real home movie).

Moore is trying to make you think that this is footage from a home video recording of the actual event, when it is really quite fictitious (like on Unsolved Mysteries & America’s Most Wanted – only they tell you what you’re seeing has been set up).

Not a huge damnation of the entire film by far, but information you the viewer should know when believing Michael Moore’s statements of “liking non-fiction while living in fictitious times” and accepting Bowling for Columbine as an honest depiction of fact and truth telling documentary, as it shows the degree to which he goes to try and deceive his viewer.

Many of his fans point-out that Moore is NOT anti-gun, and point to his membership in the NRA (as well as the very guns he owns) as proof. However, at the same time, he is the poster-boy for gun-control.

If you can’t see the hypocrisy in this, then you’re a moron; he’s preaching veganism while eating a steak.

In Bowling, Michael Moore brags that he is a “lifetime member” of the NRA. So it might be expected that Moore would inform viewers about the NRA’s noble anti-slavery history, but not quite. In his brief history of America cartoon he attempts the opposite and does an admirable job of welding racism to the NRA wherever possible as detailed in other places of this site. The main issue here is Moore’s phony respect for the organization. Instead of coming out against it and opposing what he feels are dangerous and detrimental actions, he feigns neutrality in Bowling For Columbine when it is clear he despises the organization.

Just look at what Moore says about the NRA himself :

“After Columbine, I decided that I would run against Charlton Heston for the presidency of the NRA. If elected, my plan was to try to return the NRA to a gun safety organization, instead of its current agenda of gun fanaticism. The rules said that to run for president, you had to be a member for the past five years or buy a lifetime membership for $750. And that’s what I did. But after a while I realized this endeavor was going to take too much time, so I decided to focus all my attention on the movie I was making.”

Too much time… Here Moore actually admits that he’d rather take pot shots and defame those he disagrees with in movies rather than actually make any real change. Perhaps the paycheck from making a movie vs. NRA president was more enticing to Moore than it was to Charlton Heston. Dave Kopel writes:

But Moore’s connection to the NRA is bizarre; he told Tim Russert that he joined the group so that he could be elected its president and make it support gun control. This is aggrandized self-delusion, rather like Barbra Streisand announcing that she was becoming Catholic so that she could be elected Pope and make the Church support polygamy.

Distortion on Heston’s record

Moore says that the NRA is responsible for gun crime despite vigorous and bold efforts by the organization and especially Charlton Heston while he served as president, to curtail gun violence. For instance – Heston was known for taking tough stances like the following:

If you’re a felon out on the streets of Philadelphia today, I dare you to carry a gun,” Heston warned. “Because if you do, you will go to prison. No plea bargain, no discussion. Just a cold, hard federal prison cell. So go ahead — carry a gun on these streets. To quote my good friend Clint Eastwood, ‘Make My Day’. (January 25, 1999)

But then again, Moore and his viewers may equally hate that approach. Others (myself included) love that kind of no nonsense “bring it on” type of threat when concerning violence when the subtext is that “because you will be punished if you dare”. It all depends on whether you’re one of those crazies who like to confront wickedness instead of appease it.

But opinions aside – Moore’s representation of the NRA is dishonest at best.

Michael Moore sets the tone of Bowling For Columbine by choosing a title and reason for that choice that rests on false premises, uneven argument, factually inaccurate citations and a stubborn refusal to correct the record.

The film begins on the day of the Columbine murders on the morning of April 20, 1999. Michael Moore narrates the opening of the day and the movie, stating that on that day, “Two boys went bowling at six in the morning.”

The truth: the Columbine murderers skipped class on the day of the murders. Glenn Moore of the Golden Police Department concluded that they were absent from school on the day of the attack. This police record was made available before Bowling For Columbine was released.

The teacher of the bowling class kept attendance through score. When a student was absent, their average score was entered for them and circled. Page 31 of this pdf file scan of the police record from the Boulder Daily Camera to see the circles (top left corner of the page).

The police investigation found that none of the students in the bowling class that morning had seen the killers that day. Glenn Moore summarizes his final conclusion on page 33: “The score sheet, as well as the teacher, indicated HARRIS, KLEBOLD AND MORRIS were absent on April 20, 1999.”

This inaccuracy is important, considering it is the foundation for the thesis of the entire movie, which is that American violence is caused by America’s history of violence and and other excuses are invalid. Using Columbine as an example, Moore argues that because the boys allegedly went bowling the day they murdered their classmates, that blaming violent video games or Marilyn Manson music makes no more sense than blaming bowling. This argument fails under the revelation that the boys did not attend the bowling class and no evidence is given to suggest they had any interest in the sport, where as their enjoyment of Mansons music and violent video games is well documented.

Moore elaborates on this fallacy founded argument in the official Bowling For Columbine website FAQ:

One reason the film is called “Bowling For Columbine” is that, after the massacre, all the pundits and experts started blaming all the usual suspects that are wheeled out for blame whenever a school shooting occurs-evil rock music (in this case Marilyn Manson), violent video games, and bad parenting. My point is that those scapegoats make about as much sense as blaming bowling. After all, Eric and Dylan were bowlers, they took bowling class at Columbine-was bowling responsible for their evil deeds? If they bowled that morning, did the bowling trigger their desire to commit mass murder? Or, if they skipped their bowling class that morning, did that bring on the massacre? Had they bowled, that may have altered their mood and prevented them from picking up their guns. As you can see, this is all nonsense, just as it is nonsense to blame Marilyn Manson.

Moore’s claim that the violence based music and video games that the boys thoroughly (perhaps obsessively) enjoyed are illegitimate triggers for their violent behavior is supported only through the argument that another activity the boys enjoyed was not blamed.

Moore argues instead that United States foreign policy and proximity to company headquarters which make weapons for the military are more likely causes for violence, but does not explain why these dots he has connected are any more legitimate than the recreation the boys were actually interested in.

Moore also fails to elaborate on why exactly bad parenting is an illegitimate scapegoat when it pertains to gun crime, as well as why he uses that exact correlation argument later in the same film.

When manipulating the Kayla Rolland shooting, Moore blames the occurrence on lack of parenting which he in turn blames on Dick Clark.

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Fahrenheit 911 begins on election night 2000 where Al Gore is on stage at a Florida rally with a banner reading “Florida Victory.” While this creates the impression that Gore was celebrating his victory in Florida, the really actually took in the early hours of election day, before polls had even opened. Gore returned to his home in Tennessee to await the election results. The “Florida Victory” sign reflected Gore’s hopes, not any actual election results.

The film shows CBS and CNN calling Florida for Al Gore when Moore intones “Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy….All of a sudden the other networks said, ‘Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.’”

“All of us networks made a mistake and projected Florida in the Al Gore column. It was our mistake” says NBC anchor Tom Brokaw in a portrayal that makes it seem as though the NBC retraction was caused by Fox.

Dave Kopel reports the events of the evening in detail that starkly contrasts Moore’s presentation:

In fact, the networks which called Florida for Gore did so early in the evening—before polls had even closed in the Florida panhandle, which is part of the Central Time Zone. NBC called Florida for Gore at 7:49:40 p.m., Eastern Time. This was 10 minutes before polls closed in the Florida panhandle. Thirty seconds later, CBS called Florida for Gore. And at 7:52 p.m., Fox called Florida for Gore. Moore never lets the audience know that Fox was among the networks which made the error of calling Florida for Gore prematurely. Then at 8:02 p.m., ABC called Florida for Gore. Only ABC had waited until the Florida polls were closed.

The premature calls probably cost Bush thousands of votes from the conservative panhandle, as discouraged last-minute voters heard that their state had already been decided, and many voters who were waiting in line left the polling place. In Florida, as elsewhere, voters who have arrived at the polling place before closing time often end up voting after closing time, because of long lines. The conventional wisdom of politics is that supporters of the losing candidate are most likely to give up on voting when they hear that their side has already lost. (Thus, on election night 1980, when incumbent President Jimmy Carter gave a concession speech while polls were still open on the West coast, the early concession was widely blamed for costing the Democrats several Congressional seats in the West. The fact that all the networks had declared Reagan a landslide winner while West coast voting was still in progress was also blamed for Democratic losses in the West.) Even if the premature television calls affected all potential voters equally, the effect was to reduce Republican votes significantly, because the Florida panhandle is a Republican stronghold; depress overall turnout in the panhandle, and you will necessarily depress more Republican than Democratic votes.

At 10:00 p.m., which network took the lead in retracting the premature Florida result? The first retracting network was CBS, not Fox.

Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner, as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.

CBS had taken the lead in making the erroneous call for Gore, and had taken the lead in retracting that call. At 3:59 a.m., CBS also took the lead in retracting the Florida call for Bush. All the other networks, including Fox, followed the CBS lead within eight minutes. That the networks arrived at similar conclusions within a short period of time is not surprising, since they were all using the same data from the Voter News Service. (Linda Mason, Kathleen Francovic & Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “CBS News Coverage of Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations” (CBS News, Jan. 2001), pp. 12-25.)

Moore’s editing technique of the election night segment is typical of his style: all the video clips are real clips, and nothing he says is, formally speaking, false. But notice how he says, “Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy…” The impression created is that the Fox call of Florida for Bush came soon after the CBS/CNN calls of Florida for Gore, and that Fox caused the other networks to change (“All of a sudden the other networks said, ‘Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.’”)

This is the essence of the Moore technique: cleverly blending half-truths to deceive the viewer.

Outfoxed contains a bizarre segment with David Hnatiuk, identified as a “former Fox Music Supervisor”, where he claims to have invented the “Fox News Alert”, saying:

Probably 1999 [sic] I created the Fox News Alert. We were striving to accomplish a sense of urgency. Urgency in the sense that what was about to be delivered after the Fox News Alert was very important. Quote, unquote, shocking news. Specifically Columbine and all the other important news stories of that time.

Actually, the practice of displaying a graphic under a sound was not original to David Hnatiuk and Fox News. Video and audio Breaking News alerts have been in practice long before Fox News, or cable TV news, or cable TV, or TV.

Hnatiuk expresses curiosity that his “creation” is allegedly being misused by the network.

But now, looking back, now that I’m not there I find it interesting that I’ve seen the Fox News Alert used for stories like “Bennifer” J-Lo and Ben’s relationship. I mean this, compared to a school shooting, and there’s really no relationship to me and I don’t understand why, based on what we originally created it for, ah, why they would choose to use it for a news story like that;  cause the sound and the visuals is associated, or originally was associated, with things that were much more important.

Hnatuik does not expand upon why exactly he is confused about reporting style at a news network evolving or what exactly about the one-second-long bell stroke sound and text displaying the date and and phrase “Fox News Alert” is so important that it would be journalistic malpractice to use for events less than the scale of a school shooting.

During Hnatuiks segment, Outfoxed shows the animated graphic logo for a Fox News Alert  from 03.08.04, but doesn’t show the alerts content. It is also left unclear if Hnatuik’s claim to have “seen the Fox News Alert used for stories like ‘Bennifer’” is meant to be a vague complaint for literally “stories like Bennifer” or testimony to have actually seen a Fox News Alert concerning the relationship between Ben Afleck and Jennifer Lopez.

Common sense suggests that if this were a literal allegation, Hnatuik would have left no doubt and not choosed the words “stories like” to precede the example. This, combined with Outfoxed lack of pressing the issue or giving any examples of developments in tabloid stories being treated as important breaking news suggest that Hnatuik is not actually claiming to have witnessed such an example and is merely using a “some people say” type technique to avoid citing an actual example that may or may not exist.

Assumedly an example of a story Outfoxed thinks is a misuse of a breaking news alert – the one and only example given in the film – is a development concerning Martha Stewart’s conviction in the ImClone stock trading case. Fox anchor David Asman introduces the segment before the films editing fades him out. The lower third title bar reads: Martha Stewart Leaves Fed CT After Probation Meeting (an event that was treated as important news by every major news outlet)

David Asman: And this is a Fox News Alert. A very busy day for Martha Stewart. Earlier today she met with her parole officer…

Outfoxed quickly fades to black, not allowing the viewer to see and therefore judge the content of the Alert.

Further, the implication that the Fox News Alert is routinely used for frivolous non-alerting stories is false.

Bowling For Truth was unable to find a single example of the Fox News Alert being used in a story that descends to the non-importance level of something like a celebrity romance.

Fox News liberal commentator Susan Estrich was the first woman president of the Harvard Law Review and the first woman to head a national presidential campaign when she lead Michael Dukakis (D-MA) bid against President H. W. Bush.

CLARA FRENK: A lot of the times the liberals that they get to appear on are either, you know, faux-liberals, like, I would use Susan Estrich as an example of that, a person who was brought on, who essentially agrees with the person on the right in a lot of cases.

Frenk gives no examples to support her allegation about Estrich’s record at Fox News and Outfoxed provides no footage showing any instances of Frenks claim ever taking place (as noted below, the film does play one clip of Estrich following Frenk’s statement, but it only shows Estrich being personally pleasant toward Sean Hannity and not any point of agreement with the conservative co-host on any topic).

Bowling For Truth was able to find no instance of Estrich agreeing with a conservative on Fox News that she was presented to counter.

Estrich is the author of The Case for Hillary Clinton and Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate

Estrich’s columns on FoxNews.com confirm a consistent liberal record.

AD HOMINEM REQUIREMENT FALLACY

Instead of citing “a lot of cases” – or even a single instance – where Susan Estrich was on air at Fox News “essentially agreeing with the person on the right”, Outfoxed plays a clip of Estrich joking with Sean Hannity that she doesn’t personally dislike him.

FOX FOOTAGE: SUSAN ESTRICH ON HANNITY AND COLMES
ESTRICH: I am your biggest liberal friend. I do take a little heat. People some times say to me, “Do you really like Sean Hannity”.
HANNITY: What’s not to like?
COLMES: I thought I was Sean’s biggest liberal friend.
HANNITY: I love you all.

In the section, Fox News Techniques: Fox Liberals, Outfoxed makes a fallacy riddled and bizarre conspiracy claim against Fox News’ portrayal of on-air liberals.

Frank O’Donnell, identified as a “former Fox News producer”, presents an incoherent allegation that Fox News attempts “to put on the appearance” of being ideologically balanced but sends “subtle messages” that the liberal commentator is “not so smart after all” because they are less attractive than the conservative.

Using Hannity & Colmes as an example, O’Donnel appears to have a crush on Sean Hannity but dismisses Alan Colme’s intellect because of his physical appearance. O’Donnel then baselessly projects his own bias onto the public, accusing Fox News of sending a “subtle message”:

FRANK O’DONNELL: What they’ll try to put on the appearance of being balanced, but really kind of a mismatch. You’ll have a Hannity And Colmes Show where Hannity [FOX FOOTAGE HANNITY] is a really, a good-looking, kind of clean-cut all-American kind of guy and, and [FOX FOOTAGE COLMES] his counterpart is a little squirrelly looking, frankly. And you kind of say he’s the liberal? Well, maybe he’s not so smart after all and it, and it, and it sends a subtle message, I think.

Outfoxed provides no evidence or argument to support the allegation that matching “squirrlly looking” liberals with attractive conservatives to send “subtle messages” to the viewer that liberals are “not so smart after all” is a conscious technique at Fox News nor is any data presented or postulated to hypothesize that viewers equate physical appearance with intellect.

BLURRING THE LINE BETWEEN COMMENTARY AND…COMMENTARY

In the section of Outfoxed labeled Fox News Techniques: News commentary and Ad Libs, the film alleges to expose techniques of the news network that deceive the viewer – however the film begins this expose by deceiving the viewer.

James Wolcott, identified on screen as a former staff writer for the New Yorker/Cultural Critic for Vanity Fair creates the following strawman fallacy which is then endorsed by Outfoxed editing to lie about Bill O’Reilly’s role at Fox News:

WOLCOTT: No, they deliberately blur it and, I find it very hard to believe, you know – there’s no separation between Bill O’Reilly the Interviewer and Bill O’Reilly with his Talking Points. I mean, there’s just no separation at all.

FOX NEWS FOOTAGE OF BILL O’REILLY: Jimmy Carter is making yet another mistake and this time, there’s no excuse for it. And that’s the memo. Now for the top story tonight. Another view on this.

The criticism relies on the ignorance of the viewer on how Bill O’Reilly is used at the Fox News Channel. Wolcott falsely implies that O’Reilly has any role beyond that of analyst at Fox. The footage shown immediately following Wolcott’s dubious claim show’s the end of the Talking Points Memo segment where, in Fair & Balanced fashion, O’Reilly introduces a guest who disagrees with him. As the O’Reilly Factor is an opinion and news analysis program, there is never a switch to news delivery. If breaking news develops during the O’Reilly time slot, the show is pre-empted by a news anchor to deliver the news.

UNIDENTIFIED-LIBERAL MEDIA ACTIVIST BASELESSLY BASHES THE NEWS AT FOX NEWS

Jeff Cohen then appears to add more condemnation on the journalism, or lack thereof, at Fox News. He is identified only as a “former MSNBC/Fox News Contributor”, leaving the viewer to fill in the vague description. In reality, Cohen was a hired by Fox News as a liberal commentator, appearing on air to give left wing analysis mainly on the weekend show Fox News Watch which turns a critical eye on news coverage appearing on other networks and Fox News itself.

It’s very hard on Fox News to separate news from commentary because it all blends together. That’s what makes it so ridiculous, that slogan [GRAPHIC: FOX LOGO YOU DECIDE 2004]“We report you decide”, because there’s no TV news channel in history that’s ever reported less.

Cohen offers no insight, details, data or example to back up his claim about the amount of reporting taking place on Fox News.

ANOTHER UNIDENTIFIED-LIBERAL MEDIA ACTIVIST GIVES ANOTHER BASELESS CONDEMNATION

David Brock follows Cohen’s statement to offer attacks on Fox’s daily Washington based newscast Special Report with Brit Hume. As with Cohen, no mention is made of Brocks career as a liberal media activist. He is identified only as “President/CEO of Media Matters for America”, with disclosure of the hyper partisan nature of the organization left absent.

DAVID BROCK: For example, a Brit Hume newscast, um, which is presented as a newscast, um, I think you see a lot of attitude and opinion, both from the anchor and the reports.

BRIT HUME: Welcome to Washington. I’m Brit Hume. There was further evidence today that President Bush’s days of absorbing John Kerry’s attacks without counter-attack are over.

This laughable example of alleged “attitude and opinion” is the only evidence given by Outfoxed to support Brocks smear of Special Report and its anchor Brit Hume. No further footage, citation or example even from Brocks memory is given to support his statement. The argument is exists entirely of an Argument From Authority fallacy in the form of: “a liberal activist ‘thinks you see a lot of attitude and opinion, both from the anchors and the reports’ so it must be true”.

CLAIM [by yet another unidentified-liberal media activist]: BRIT HUME IS NOT UNBIASED LIKE… PETER JENNINGS IS

Peter Hart, an anti-Fox News author and activist for the liberal media watch dog group FAIR is next to pile on Hume. As with Brock and Cohen, only his position as an analyst for FAIR is noted on screen with no disclosure of the organizations partisan nature or Harts anti-Fox News and liberal background.

PETER HART: Fox blurs the line between using commentary all over the place [dissolve to] We are to believe that Brit Hume is the anchor of a news outlet, he doesn’t bring strong politics to it, he just happens to anchor the news cast like Peter Jennings. On Sundays, Brit Hume turns into a rather caustic right-wing pundit.

Actually, Jennings not only disagreed with Hart’s false assessment of him, but expressed “concern” at it that same year telling a Missouri affiliate:.

I’m a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective,” Jennings said.

Jennings said that everyone — even journalists — have points of view through which they filter their perception of the news. It could be race, sex or income. But, he said, reporters are ideally trained to be as objective as possible.

“And when we don’t think we can be fully objective, to be fair,” the anchorman said.

Outfoxed doesn’t explain why on Sunday’s, Hume allegedly turns into a right-wing Werewolf. The reference is apparently one to Humes role as an analyst on the Fox News Sunday program hosted by Chris Wallace. Hart fails to provide any basis for his allegation that Hume’s analysis are routinely “caustic” and “right-wing”.

Outfoxed displays under sinister music and ominous voice-over, several leaked internal staff memo’s from Fox News VP John Moody directing the coverage of the days news and how the network will approach the issues of the day. Greenwald portrays the act of direction as evidence of bias itself, depriving the viewer of the fact that every television news outlet has these internal memo’s.

MOODY CLAIMS OPENNESS, OUTFOXED HAS NO REBUTTAL

The content of these messages are portrayed as outrageous orchestrations of bias despite none of them showing evidence of the kind of slavish right-wing bias and distortion that is the movies thesis.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Moody rejects “the implication that I’m controlling the news coverage,” saying of his 1,200 employees: “People are free to call me or message me and say, ‘I think you’re off base.’ Sometimes I take the advice, sometimes I don’t.”

Michael Dubert, a former Fox News intern disputed the broad claims against Moody’s memo’s, painting them as sinisterly strict direction of how to cover the news, writing in the Daily Pennsylvanian in an article titled Outfoxed not an accurate portrayal :

I read those editorial memos every day for three months, during which time some big stories broke — the death of former President Ronald Reagan, American hostage Paul Johnson Jr.’s beheading, Saddam Hussein on trial, the Democratic National Convention and a fiery political race. And all FOX News shows prepared their rundowns as they saw fit. Editorials were blueprints, not marching orders.

THE FOX NEWS MEMO CHALLENGE

After the release of Outfoxed, Fox’s competitors started touting the memos in the film as credible evidence of the cable network’s bias. However, Fox News publicly challenged these (or any) media organizations to make public their own employee memos, whereupon “FOX News Channel will publish 100 percent of our editorial directions and memos, and let the public decide who is fair.”

None of the networks accepted Fox News’ challenge to reveal their own internal memos to the public.

BASELESS ACCUSATIONS. NO NAMES. NO INSTANCES. JUST SMEARS.

Larry Johnson, a former part-time Fox commentator who appears in the film, labels the staff memos “talking points instructing us what the themes are supposed to be, and God help you if you stray.” However, Johnson fails to back up this assertion and Outfoxed provides no instances of any employee (even those shrouded in darkness whose voices are changed to protect their identity while giving their testimony’s) ever receiving any negative consequences from voicing any disagreement to Moody about the tone of Fox’s news coverage. In fact, Outfoxed provides no evidence that any of the Fox employee’s made any such comment to Moody in opposition to his memo’s.

OMISSION OF MEMOS CONTAINING LIBERAL DIRECTION

The presentation of the memos in Outfoxed does not disclose how many the movie’s producers had obtained so the viewer can discern how representative the ones spotlighted in the film are of daily operation at Fox News.

USA Today revealed that Outfoxed had cherrypicked the memo’s to present a fictionally slanted view that makes no mention of the existence of memo’s obtained but not used by Outfoxed that give sympathetic direction to Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry:

However, Outfoxed does not mention other memos its researchers obtained from Fox News staffers.

Those memos, shown to USA TODAY, remind correspondents to give equal emphasis to speeches by President Bush and his opponent, Sen. John Kerry.

Another memo says, “Let’s not overdo the appearances by Kerry swift boat mate John O’Neill,” a man who raised questions about the senator’s wartime record. “He represents one side of the 30-year recollections of what Kerry did, or didn’t do, in uniform. Other people have different recollections,” the memo says.

Thus the entire segment on the Moody memo’s is an exercise in rank hypocrisy as it attacks a news source for allegedly creating slanted coverage to conform to a partisan agenda, while operating under exactly that model to make the allegation.

Response: the Outfoxed creators released all 33 of the memos that were leaked to them. The consortium shows that director Robert Greenwald did indeed select unrepresentative memos to fit the agenda of his film.

Some highlights below, with assessment in bold by the now defunct CableNewser website:

Some of the statements in the memos are questionable:

6/3/03: “The national forest as pot field story is pure Fox.”

4/4/04: Fallujah: “We will cover this hour by hour today, explaining repeatedly why it is happening. It won’t be long before some people start to decry the use of ‘excessive force.’ We won’t be among that group.”

04/28/04: “Let’s refer to the US marines we see in the foreground as “sharpshooters” not snipers, which carries a negative connotation.”

But the memos also show a news organization committed to ferreting out facts, answering questions for viewers and getting the story straight.

3/18/03: “Resist the urge to make any assumption about the potential Al Zawahiri story. Pakistani reports are often confused, especially when they come to us secondhand. Report only what we know and attribute it.”
04/08/04: “A battle is more than a macabre statistics report.”

04/21/04: “If Michael Jackson is indicted on sex charges, it’s a big story for us, but PLEASE don’t turn it into a nonstop circus.”

04/28/04: “Do not ignore the Oil for Food story, please. Fox News is making steady progress in investigating what could be, without exaggeration, the biggest ripoff of all time.”

And the memos also offer insight into FOX’s operating procedures:

05/03/04: “We are all so used to using the AP wires that their (temporary) absence today provides not just a challenge, but an opportunity. Check websites (including AP) and pay special attention to the urgent queue until AP service is restored. But use the outage to check just how much we rely on one service, and figure out alternatives.”

03/26/04: “We have competing speeches from the candidates for president…We’ll take whichever one starts first, time how long we stay with it, then give the same time to the other.”

03/24/04: “For everyone’s information, the hotel where our Baghdad bureau is housed was hit by some kind of explosive device overnight. ALL FOX PERSONNEL ARE OK…Please offer a prayer of thanks for their safety to whatever God you revere (and let the ACLU stick it where the sun don’t shine).”

Outfoxed features a montage of anti-Democrat statements being made by an assortment of un-identified people on Fox News. The lack of informing the viewer of the role each individual plays on Fox News is key to the distortion, as the montage includes opinion commentators and guests along with news program anchors.

The dishonesty of this editing and depravity of disclosure was picked up by the Washington Post, noting:

“Outfoxed” accuses Fox of blurring the line between news coverage and the high-decibel opinions of its commentators and hosts, especially Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity (who each night counts the days “until George W. Bush is reelected”). But the movie follows a similar path, melding rapid-fire clips of anchors with pundits and guests — who are, after all, booked for their opinions — to illustrate that Fox takes the Republican side of every issue.