What’s the Point?

After watching Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism I questioned the reality of the points made in the documentary. I boycott all television news programs so I have not watched the Fox News channel in over four years. I questioned the validity of the documentary’s outtakes since it’s really easy to tape a segment and use it out of context to prove a point. Basically, its about as reliable as statistics, there is always a one to backup a point regardless of how outlandish it may be.

In twenty minutes, the Fox “News” channel had touched on many of the topics that Outfoxed identified. The Kennedy’s and Chappaquiddick, Al Gore, same-sex marriages, gratuitous, obnoxious political-correctness that enrages the majority of the democratic party (or the dominant white, middle-age males), anti-war, abortion, the Protestant God and Jesus Christ. All by one person, Sean Hannity on his show “Hannity’s America”. The majority of time centered on a fifteen minute expose on democrat Al Gore and his hypocrisy about his concerned over global warming. “We’ll let you decide for yourself” Hannity claimed before he described Gore and his democratic comrades as “environmental alarmists” and “leer-jet liberals.”

In 2006, Al Gore and director David Guggenheim released a documentary titled An Inconvenient Truth which described the effect of Global Warming and how societies need to reduce their “carbon footprint” to prevent an environmental catastrophe. In 2007, the documentary received two Academy Awards. It also has been well received by critics, RottenTomatoes.com gave it a “certified fresh” rating at 93%, a percentage calculated by polling movie critics from all across America. It gained praise by scientists and has been integrated into many high school science curriculums. At the end of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore presented a list of suggestions that people can do to reduce and help reverse global warming.

Hannity took two of theses suggestions, “flying responsibly and riding a bicycle to work” to demonstrate prove how Gore was a hypocrite since he arrived in San Francisco in a private jet. He also listed “living in a straw house” and a “compost producing toilet” to demonstrate the ridiculousness of environmentally-sound alternatives but quickly skipped over or ignored some of the other more pragmatic suggestions of turning off lights, purchasing hybrid vehicles, and/or planting trees.

Not only that, Hannity had twisted the words of Gore’s saying people were required to do all these suggestions, otherwise they are responsible for “the destruction of the world” when in reality, Gore said “here are some ideas, if POSSIBLE put them into use.” Romano (1986)
stated that journalists have a requirement to “report the actions of their chief local governmental figures” and to report on issues “on which people vocally contend and seek action” (p. 45). Apparently Gore’s popularity and the world’s positive response to his raising the public’s awareness about global warming and his call to action threatened the elite Republicans. Hermann and Chomsky (1988) stated “If the government or corporate community and the media feel that a story is useful as well as dramatic, they focus on it intensively and use it to enlighten the public” (p. 32) or in this case the Republican government and big-business. Through its control of the Fox News channel, they can promote their agenda of smearing Al Gore and his message of Global Awareness.

Hermann and Chomsky also predicted the method the media would use to validate a story that was considered useful to the elite, “the process will get under way with a series of governmental leaks, press conferences, or white papers [an authoritative report]” (p.34). Hannity routinely referred to a report released by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR), described by ABC News as being“an obscure conservative think tank” (2007). The TCPR first charged Gore in 2006 with hypocrisy when they publicized his $30,000-a-year in utility bills. Hannity restated at least three times in the eighteen minute segment that this bill was twenty times more than the average American paid in utilities. Overtime, if Hannity’s report garnered enough interest “the propaganda themes quickly become established as true even without real evidence” (Hermann & Chomsky, 1988, p.34).

But Hannity was not the only Republican using negative propaganda to undermine Gore’s popularity and message. In 2006, shortly after the release of An Inconvenient Truth, YouTube.com posted a short video called, “Al Gore’s Penguins” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZSqXUSwHRI). It quickly became popular and viewed by many. A reporter from the Wall Street Journal became suspicious and discovered that the video originated from a DCI Group, a public relations and lobbying firm. Two of DCI clients were General Motors and Exxon (ABC News, 2007).

Al Gore’s hypocrisy proclaimed by Hannity to validate the propaganda approach used by Fox News, DCI, and the Republicans demonstrated the accuracy of Chomsky, Romano and Outfoxed hypotheses: that big business, the elite, the controlling powers recognized the importance of media. The elitists have infiltrated and used the trust of the American public to promote their own agendas and maintain their control over them. However, all the blame should not fall on the Fox or the elites, individuals need to demand “fair and accuracy” and “objectivity, to “identify their cultural and political beliefs, to read publications that oppose them, so that the hidden assumptions they encounter across the journalistic spectrum are exposed“ (Romano, 78). So it wasn’t about, truly, Al Gore or global warming, it was about social control and a willingness to be controlled.

References:

Greenwald, R. (Producer/Director). (2004). Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism [Motion picture]. United States: The Disinformation Company.

“Hannity’s America” Fox News Channel [Television]. (September 22, 2007). United States: Fox News.

Hermann, E.S. & Chomsky, Noam (1988). “A Propaganda Model” Manufacturing Consent, New York : Pantheon.

Romano, Carlin (1986) “THE GRISLY TRUTH ABOUT BARE FACTS” Reading the News, (Manhoff and Schudson, Eds.). New York: Pantheon.

Rotten Tomatoes. “An Inconvenient Truth (2006)” RottenTomatoes.com. Retrieved September 19th, 2007. Web Site: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconvenient_truth.

Tapper, J. (2007, February 26) “Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’?-- A $30,000 Utility Bill” ABC News. Retrieved on September 23, 2007. Web Site:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=2906888&page=1.