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How Liberal Activists Outfoxed FOX
A really illuminating panel showed how a major right-wing organization was set back on its heels -- and how it can be done again and again and again.
When the Nevada Democratic Party announced that it was cosponsoring a presidential candidate debate with "Fox News," Robert Greenwald, the maker of the outstanding documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, started hearing from friends. "Can we convince them that this is a serious mistake?" they asked. And said: "We need to make it crystal clear to people that Fox is not a news organization."
He ended up circulating a video about Fox's war on Democrats that eventually got the debate canceled. And, even better, managed to do something Democrats have never been able to do, and never even tried: get people questioning Fox News's very legitimacy.
Greenwald told the story about what happened in between, at the panel, in a riveting way: via video. Yes, a video about a video. A simple video, to be sure, featuring short talking head interviews with the major activists who made it happen: Greenwald himself; Matt Stoller of MyDD.com; Adam Green of MoveOn.org. There was even a soundtrack behind them. (I recall synthesizers, and strumming guitars.)
By starting the panel that way, Greenwald made a crucial point: outfits like Fox can be fought on their own terms - via images - with surprising ease, and in incredibly compelling fashion. It was kind of, if you know what I mean, Brechtian. (If you don't know what I mean, no matter.)
Then Greenwald, in the flesh, took the podium, and fleshed out the rest of the story: how a new model of "mutually reinforcing activism" saved the day. Greenwald produced a video of the most damning clips of Fox savaging Democrats. The video included an address for an online petition at the end. Within 24 hours the petition had received thousands of signatures. They got angry local Nevada Democrats to bug Nevada Democratic leaders. They got local Nevada bloggers - people with but a thousand or two thousand readers a day - on the case. These blogs were read by local politicians, party officers, local media. The elites started taking notice. They managed to get national coverage of a local story. That made it bigger locally.
As the controversy started burbling, Fox made a clever play. They approached Air America and invited them to contribute a liberal to the debate panel. Tokenism: a powerful hustle. Especially since it would help them slap the "fair and balanced" imprimateur on a TV show designed, like all "Fox News" programs are designed, as a platform to humiliate Democrats.
Not so fast. Mark Green, Air America's co-owner, told the panel audience about the spanner he threw in Fox's works: not only did he turn them down, he sent letters to every Republican state chair, pointing out that Fox News and Air America have similar-size audiences, proposing that Air America sponsor a Republican candidate debate. The brilliant PR gambit amplified the entire message of the movement: Everyone knows agrees Air America is a liberal activist organization. Presto! He had just framed Fox as an equally activist organization of the right. (Green, Rudy Giuliani's longtime rival in New York municipal politics, repeated the quip he publicly made to Ailes: he could be at least as "fair and balanced" to Giuliani as Fox would be to the Democratic candidates.
On March 9 the debate was cancelled. Left wing activists had managed to do what conservatives had done for years: make a small story into a big one and seize terms of discussion. The movement's "most important role," Greenwald pointed out, was not getting the debate cancelled. "It was to de-brand Fox for the long haul. Once we agreed on that, then the decisions along the way all could fall into that pattern." Soon presidential candidates - this was the best part - started repeating the message.
Greenwald's lesson: "With no money spent on traditional publicity you can reach millions of people." And this: "Victory could not have happened...without various groups, sometimes with different agendas, coming together to fight the one fight."
It wasn't easy. They were, he said, "creating this model on the go." There were "struggles along the way." But once people started figuring out it helped everyone to stop saying, "Oh, but it's not my issue, we only to this - well, everone ended up benefiting. Said Adam from MoveOn - in the flesh: "This is what movement activism really is." It's a lesson too easy to forget. It's a lesson we'll have reason to revisit. "Because there are going to be more fights ahead."
Indeed, the same people are in one now.
Fox was pissed. Republicans don't take kindly to losing -- especially Republicans like Roger Ailes, the Fox chief who got his start in politics as Richard Nixon's media advisor. They came up with a brilliant idea: sponsoring a new Democratic debate, with the Congressional Black Institute as co-sponsor.
What good liberal movement, after all, would go after black congressmen?
The answer was: this liberal movement, which refused to be outfoxed. A stalwart African American progressive organization, Color of Change, stepped up as the voice of this next battle: telling the story that "Fox News Attacks African Americans." They circulated two more Greenwald videos: on Fox's serial abuse of the black community, and their denigration of Barack Obama. Color of Change was able to speak to the black community, with the message that the Congressional Black Institute was not speaking for the black community. Noted Greewald: "I want to make something very clear. Had we begun with a white organiation... Fox would have grabbed onto that and created fault lines."
That, indeed, was the Nixonian way. That was why Nixon promoted affirmative action in the building trades: to create fault lines between two traditional Democratic communities, labor and blacks.
It didn't work this time. We outfoxed them. Democratic candidates have started discovering sudden "scheduling conflicts." If this latest attempt at a a "Fox News" debate comes off, it will be a failure.
Says Adam Green, with this story, "You just kind of see the gradual evolution of our political leaders in response to a movement."
And isn't that what Take Back America is ultimately all about?
© 2007 TomPaine.com
25 Comments so far
Show AllWell, to get more scatalogical, we can take a look at Washington. Note the rounded architecture.
I think at this point the government is like a toilet that needs to be flushed.
Does anyone know where the handle is?
Perhaps, our friend Ralph Nader has some clues to this.
It would be "The Big Flush."
This article reminds me to the quote made by the little "Rowan & Martin Laugh In" character who always dressed in a german army helmet and smoked a cigarette, holding it like Peter Lorre, palm upward, between thumb and fore finger. Some jokingly absurd statement would be made and then a series of cuts to various comedians, regulars on the show, would be made; and each would make a one line comment.
Marty's (I think that was his name )comment delivered with the thick german accent of a malign Nazi intellectual would be this:
"Verry interressting, but stoopid."
You can't fight BS with more BS. Ultimately, it's a culture of BS, and that's what the USA is all about at this point. If the USA got rid of the BS, it could become a paradise on earth.
There is just so much BS. Clinton is BS. Bush is BS. Limbaugh is BS. Pelosi has turned out to be BS. Gore is BS. Congress is BS. The media spews BS. Most businesses provide services that are 80% BS, and 20% useful. Religion in the US is now total BS. Education has become 95% BS (used to be pretty good). The law has become 100% BS.
Media and art have become 100% BS.
The American "Dream" is now BS (always was BS, since people have different dreams, and the statement is just advertspeak).
The war in Iraq is BS based on BS, and bought by people who subsist on BS. Blair is BS and his relations with Bush have been BS. Pop Music is 125% BS. Youth culture is not young, it's materialistic, and it's BS.
Medicine in the US is BS.
I'm enjoying this and could go on for several months. There's so much BS in America. This is cathartic.
It's time to go out and get a copy of the video "Network" with Peter Finch. Remember his character that exhorts the public to shout their disapproval out the nearest window: "I'm mad as h--, and not taking any more of this."
That was a great moment in American movie making.
Those days need to be brought back, but I don't know how it can be done.
Great first step. Now if we only had some great candidates.......
AND saved DEMs from DEMselves.
why waste effort on the spineless Dems?
see David Michael Green's piece: "If Reid were Rove"
the problem is: who's left to defend our democracy from the criminals who sit in DC?
the people spoke in November, they brought the Dems to congress, the Dems capitulated to the least credible/popular prez in our history. why?
we need better.
power to the people......
I can guarantee that the republics will never support a national healthcare plan with simple, fair, and single pay parameters. I would add that this group will resist ending the war in Iraq. These are major issues with the majority of voters as shown in recent polling and reflected in the Nov. 6 elections. The hundred days of the slim majority democrats hold has at the least raised the minimum wage and at most, begun a string of investigations. Republic neocons are building a one party system in which everyone will be treated as an employee of the corporate state. It is in the interest of us all to brand this subset who call themselves republicans as war mongers opposed to national healthcare.
What is the definition of Fox's "news" slogan "FAIR AND BALANCED"?
From the American Heritage Dictionary
FAIR = OF LIGHT COMPLEXION
BALANCED =The totals in the debit and credit sides of an account.
Therefore , FOX's slogan basically means :WHITE AND RICH
Congressional Black Institute? Is that the Black Caucus or something else? Why not call it the Congressional Black Caucus if that's what it was? Someone needs to have their ass kicked for agreeing to this debate, and it's just interesting to note that an organization never heard from before did it. Somehow I got a sneaking suspicion that subtle difference will make it next to impossible to name names as to who specifically was accountable for this so-called agreement.
the dems made a big mistake not going on Fox. apparently, 50% of the voting public gets their "news" from Fox, and many of them would have watched the debate. this was a perfect chance to expose Fox to its own audience by turning the debate on its head and changing the parameters of the debate.
but NOOOOOOO...dems wimp out again. oh wait. these are the same people who enabled Fox to exist in the first place. now they just look more like the chickenshits they have been all along.
and this is supposed to be some kind of victory over a big bad corporation?
this is the kind of victory you'll get w/the dems: silly, spineless, symbolism meaning nothing.
Can't we just "Chavez" Fox?
This isn't a story about the ballless Democrats. It's a story trying to show that FOX News is biased in their coverage and presentation of the news. These liberal activists were able to manipulate the media into making this a bigger story. Same tactics used by the white House. Seems like so much effort just to tell the truth.
Hoa binh
The lesson is this: focused, targeted attacks from multiple angles. Which requires teamwork, and an agenda broken into phases. Too many issues (read: choices) is too confusing - the rule when dealing with an ad agency is never give them more than three choices. Plus, it undermines the "power in numbers" theory. The priorities are clear - the big three: Iraq, healthcare, economy. "Surge" on those three only for, say, a month. Then: the next three - climate change, global warming, Constitution shredding. Surge. Then throw them off guard - double-surge Iraq again - all hands on deck!
One of the more important truths Greenwald continues to reveal is this: the GOPathologicals are really total wussies with glass jaws and zero balls. Attack, and they cower.
This reflexive Dem-bashing, no matter what they do is exactly what's meant by the phrase Idiot Liberal. This is an article detailing a successful counter offensive by Democratic activists, the immediate comments look like something Rove wrote. Get a grip.
We have pried one branch of government out of their fingers by the slimmest of margins, only a majority if we count Lie berman. We still have the courts, the media, Big Money and a still very disciplined GOP stacked against US. Bush/Cheney has switched tactics due to the change in Congress to a rule by Veto strategy and with his Party holding the line in partyline votes, his veto can't be overidden.
Politics is not magic, it's a team sport based on numbers, learn to count.
CV, more BS excuses. all these things you say are "against" the dems are the dems' fault! who threw their weight behind Lieberman rather than Lamont? who refused to filibuster dumbya's court appointments? who benefits from the Big Money in politics? who created the media environment we live in? who supported the war in iraq, the patriot acts, gitmo, the military commission act, etc., etc.? who's funding the iraq war now? who crams this war on terrorism crap down our throats? who practically threw the elections in '00 & '04 to a buffoon a monkey could have beaten?
but but but Bush/Cheney have switched tactics...but but but we can't impeach bush cuz he'd veto it.....
What's the difference between being a conservative or acting like one? Liberals don't want concentrated wealth or centralized power. Liberal's strength is unity in numbers, something the conservatives have been very successful in destroying.
"threw their weight behind Lieberman rather than Lamont?" Karl Rove dumped 30 million dollars into CT, the Democrats voted strongly for Lamont, the republicans and independants vote for Lie berman.
"who refused to filibuster dumbya's court appointments?" Who appointed Harriet Miers? And Alito?
"who benefits from the Big Money in politics?" are you familiar with the K Street Project? Abramoff and DeLay, Inc.?
"who created the media environment we live in?" Does the Name Rupert Murdoch ring a bell? How 'bout GE, Westinghouse and Disney?
"who supported the war in iraq, the patriot acts, gitmo, the military commission act" Solid GOP bloc and part of the Democratic Caucus (I never said they were perfect)
My point is,If electoral politics isn't working for you either fix it or find some other way to effect the change you want to see. Reflexively bashing the only powercenter that's even slightly on your side does nothing but help the Thugs carry on. Make Karl Very Happy.
[quote] Greenwald's lesson: "With no money spent on traditional publicity you can reach millions of people." And this: "Victory could not have happened…without various groups, sometimes with different agendas, coming together to fight the one fight." [unquote]
This sure beats the circular firing-squad model that prevails in the progressive community.
FOX News is just awful !
This is a great story, one that isn't well known yet. Talk about asymmetric warfare. It doesn't take huge traditional media campaigns to stop a giant. This gives me a great deal of hope.
FOX is news?
CV,
You really are an idiot, and have absolutely no knowledge of history. bill (slick willy) clinton, passed and helped author the telecommunications act of 1996 which allowed murdoch, clear channel and these other sleazebags to buy up all the radio and tv stations.
Here's a quarter, get a clue will ya?
Media conglomeration was well underway before Clinton, starting in the Reagan years with the rest of the gigantism brought on by MergerMania in the 80s. Remember Time/Warner/Turner? FUX Network rolled out in 90. Clearchannel was already the big gorilla by 89 or 90. The Telecommunications act just sealed the fate, the trajectory was well established, or are y'all to young to remember?
I think the takeaway here should not be such much the victory for the Dimocraps but how lefty radicals can use the media in the same ways the conservatives can.
You know, looking over the home page, and reading this twaddle back here, I'm getting to wonder, if there is not attempt afoot to coopt this website.