Fox News as Lord and Savior

[sisabet]

I gave Cappy a copy of "Outfoxed: Rupurt Murdoch's War on Journalism" (http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1=Outfoxed%20%28Movie%29&title2=Outfoxed%20%28Movie%29&reviewer=A%2e%20O%2e%20Scott&pdate=20040720&v_id=309213) for Christmas. Several interesting things then occurred. I am here to tell you about those things, but first, some history.

As most of you know, I was raised on a small farm in rural Kentucky. I'd not make the distinction of "rural" since I already said "farm" but this is Kentucky and even in the cities, you can live on a farm. There are many many things that frustrate me about my homeland. The ability to provide a person *space* is not one of them.

Like most of my cohorts I was raised in a conservative household that attended church on a regular basis. The church was a fundamentalist nondenominational Christian Church that was similar to The Church of Christ except we could have musical instruments. Do not confuse our church with The Disciples of Christ who split from The Church of Christ 2 centuries ago over the issue of music as well. As I was told by several relatives when I confided that I enjoyed the Disciples of Christ services I attended while I was in Memphis, "You might as well not even go to church."

So I don't. If the percieved "liberalness" of a congregation means that it is unfit or I am some kind of heathen hell-bound lost soul for daring to think that love and kindness and tolerance are important religious philosophies and central Christian tenants, then I have no comeback for that. Well, actually I do - but no one wants to hear it. I could quote scripture with the best of them and much like paper can cover rock - if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, then the red-inked parts of the new testament should trounce Paul. If by raising this issue - I am automatically condemned to hell - well then what is the point? My argument is lost right there. Thank you for playing and I'll just be over here, sleeping in on Sundays.

At this point I have just entered into a state of silence about the entire thing. I will believe what I believe and continue to speak out about those things - but if people just don't care to listen, then I'll shut up, because even if they can not afford me the same respect, I'd be a hypocrite to insist that they hear me. Instead I'll try to emphasize the points we do share in common and when the time comes to disagree, point out that they raised me. I get this from somewhere. The fact that I have *always* been like this gives me credibility. I didn't go away to college and come back home all enamored with new ideas and ways of thinking. I have been expressing the same opinions and beliefs since I was four. My mother was big on pairs. She had a brunette daughter and she had a blonde daughter. She had a daughter who was a jock and a daughter who was a bookworm. She had a liberal child and a conservative child. We were into extreme representation of arch and/or stereo- types, I think, down to the fact that I adored brussel sprouts and Dawn hated carrots.

I tell you all this now because confronting the issue of "Fox: News" with my family was exactly like confronting the issue of religion. I am not saying that it was a similar experience - I am telling you it was *exactly* the same. I think this is interesting and useful knowledge to have, because I listen to NPR and sometimes watch CNN. I am more attached ideologically to NPR, but this is more of a theoretical fondness. I like the idea of National Public Radio more than the actual product, if I have to be honest. If you were to tell me that there is a documentary I should watch that systematically addresses some defaults of holes in CNN or NPR; I would naturally want to know the sources and would watch it critically -- but I'd watch it and enter into a debate. It would not *upset* me as a challenge to my belief system.

Perhaps if you wanted me to watch a documentary that accuses Joss Whedon of both plagiarism and xenophobia -- that would ire me to the point of stomach ache. But my love for Joss is very very deep.

This is when it hit me -- for many people (and not just my family) Fox News is their primary fandom - but unlike fandom - this is something way deeper than play. They care about these pundits and "anchors" and this is something you have to know. These people are family members.

Fox is very very good at what it does and the faces it projects are systematically created to make America love them. Not enjoy them or respect them or trust them -- they want so much more than that - they want your love. And they go about obtaining this devotion in very sophisticated ways. Patriotism -- something that is very necessary for any nation-state to survive and something that as a people we are intrinsically wired to feel -- it is a biological drive -- this need to belong to something bigger - to a collective and to believe in its goals as one, this has necessarily evolved in us -- and they tap into that. Attacking FoxNews at this point is akin to attacking America.

This explains to me why there is such an extreme adverse reaction to a discussion about the failings of this media to adequately do what it says it is doing, which is to report the news and let the viewer decide what to believe. Addressing the fact that this is just a lie told to make the viewer feel better about allowing a corporation to cookie cut out their entire perception of the world -- it would be like wanting to discuss if Mary truly was a virgin. It is pointless because just by bringing it up -- you are coloring yourself as an Anti-American leftist who probably wants to move to France.

So I am back at the drawing board as far as attempting to find ways open up a discussion. There is a way - there is a solution to any and all problems and I really believe this. I just have to figure out what that is -- and why my credibility is less than that of Bill O'Reilly to people who have known me my entire life. Perhaps that is it - familiarity and all -- but they have to know by now that while I am easily swayed on many little things -- my opinion on the big stuff has been carefully considered and evalutated. I have lists. I used logic. They *taught* me to look at things critically and to avoid fallacies. Well - someone taught me to do these things.

And unlike Cappy, who is exercising her adolescent right to "stir up shit" like wishing people a happy "Solstice" within earshot of my uncle. I asked her later if she even knew what Solstice was and all she knew was that Pagans celebrated it and yes - she said that to get a rise out of a conservative family member. She has not learned to choose her battles and much like Michael Moore, she does me no favors.

So it is frustrating. But it is a frustration that is familiar. At least no one calls me a Commie to my face anymore.

Comments

[luna-k.livejournal.com]

I didn't have cable tv for about 4 years, so I missed the major ascent of Fox News. The few times I flipped by it, I went "Ugh, tabloid journalism" and went about my merry way. I never had any idea FNC was as powerful and highly watched as it is. I probably wouldn't have ever discovered this if they hadn't sued one of my favorite comedians, Al Franken. Reading his book was a huge shock to me... but a big part of me was thinking he HAD to be exaggerating some of these accusations.

And then I saw Outfoxed, and I knew he wasn't exaggerating one teeny tiny bit.

I've shown this movie to at least 3 different people and everytime it's the same reactions. "Oh my GOD, there is no way this channel is on the air!" "What the hell?" "How can they get away with this!" Ask valereix. She was about to punch in my tv.

It used to confuse me how FNC, with its hyper-conservative, ultra-religious, self-righteous stances could be the same corporation that produces sleaze like "Joe Millionare" and "Temptation Island", etc. But then it all became kinda clear. IT'S ALL THE SAME THING. It's all sleaze, it's all porn, just different fetishes.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I think you are brave and brilliant. Your point about Fox News carefully creating of its anchors and personalities people you can *love*, about how this whole concept is linked inextricably to patriotism, explains more about the culture gap in this country than any of the hundreds of articles I've read about the election this year.

I am really sorry that you find yourself so often opposed to your family on these issues; that sounds very difficult. But it's great that you're continuing to think critically and post about this stuff. It's fascinating, and it's helpful.

[flyingtapes.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you grew up in Kentucky. I go to school there now.

[way2busymom.livejournal.com]

if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, then the red-inked parts of the new testament should trounce Paul.

I got kicked out of a bible study group once for pointing this out.

Good times...

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

This is really extremely insightful. Are you a member of DailyKos (http://www.dailykos.com/)? If so, you should post it there. If not, I would be willing to post it for you, with or without a link back to your LJ.

Fox is very very good at what it does and the faces it projects are systematically created to make America love them. Not enjoy them or respect them or trust them -- they want so much more than that - they want your love.

This is what I have such a hard time understanding. Because I look at these people and my gut reaction is "Assholes!" How does FNC get your relatives to love these assholes? Why do you think your relatives go along?

Back in the Reagan years I started to see a lot of what I called Asshole Politics, designed to appeal to the asshole in all of us. It seemed to me that this was very effective because everyone has an inner asshole which we have to constantly keep in check. Being told "it's all right to be an asshole" (e.g. "Greed Is Good") is thus relaxing, liberating, validating. Do you think that's what is going on with your relatives? Or is it something else?

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Wow, that does sound frustrating. I know a little bit of what it's like, but the most conservative part of my family lives in a different state and only visits when we have holidays. I don't live so close to it.

I mean, I knew that FOX was evil when they went about cancelling shows. I never watched the news because... at that time in my life, I never watched the news. It's only recently that I started, which was after I had already starting hating FOX with the passion of a thousand soul-hot Spikes.

You've got my support, for however much that may help.

[minim_calibre]

As frustrating as this is to you, it's an amazing education for one like me, raised as I was in a secular, blue corner of the country by people who aren't Americans by birth. Agnostic Canadians here for work, in fact, who stayed.

Thank you, for providing the insights you have into large parts of America that have baffled me and my relatives still up north (which would be, oh, all of them outside of parents and siblings), who pepper us with questions as to the "WHY?" of the U.S. political beast as though somehow proximity would mean we had an explanation.

I still feel like there's some huge Thing I'm just not getting, but you've made pieces of the picture come into focus for me.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I come from Los Angeles, where the people I argue with are libertarians who (for instance) refused to vote for Kerry because they felt he was insufficiently committed to civil liberties, and so preferred to throw away their vote on a third-party candidate and so help elect someone who is opposed to everything they value, including civil liberties, rather than sully their hands by voting for someone who agrees with them on some points but not all. I have never managed to convince any of those guys of anything either. But I have just totally digressed.

What I was wondering is whether you'd have better luck approaching them on fronts where you probably already agree. I guess health care is impossible because there's such a knee-jerk terror of "socialized medicine," but there must be other possibilities. For instance, do they think American troops in Iraq should be provided with decent armor? Do they think veterans' benefits shouldn't be cut? Do they think it's a problem that all the jobs seem to be getting shipped overseas?

And then, having slid in a wedge, you could possibly get them thinking about wider issues.

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

I had a similarly harsh awakening when I went to one of the house parties organized by MoveOn.Org to watch "Outfoxed" this summer.

I was shocked that such massive misinformation is tolerated and encouraged, and I was even more profoundly shocked when I mentioned "Outfoxed" to one of my Sci-Fi friends in an e-mail, and got a response from him which bordered on the profane and suggested that I had just poisoned his dog and buggered his mom.

No possibility of debate, no room for discussion. Finis.

Your religious analogy seems appropriate.

On the other hand, I'm reminded of Orson Scott Card's introduction to his collection of "religious" sci-fi stories, Cruel Miracles, in which he asserted that most of what passes for 'religious' literature in America is actually more properly described as 'devotional' literature. Card argued (quite effectively, given my own religious heritage, which emphasizes education and a search for truth) that a real religious discussion asks the Big Questions (is there a purpose for our life? is there a purposer? etc.), but that it is devotional literature and discussion which assumes that we already know all the answers and focuses on reinforcing and congratulating ourselves on already having the Only Truth.

The Fox News cult seems to me a purely devotional phenomenon, rather than religious in the sense of seeking after truth. And I've recently heard a scholar who's considerably more conservative than I am (David Dark, author of Everyday Apocalypse) touting his new book which suggests that any kind of unquestioning allegiance -- even to the U.S.A. -- is part of the "powers and principalities of this present darkness" against which Paul argued. Right or Left, if we've come to the point where we can't talk peaceably to anyone who doesn't already agree with us in every detail, he argued, we're pretty far removed from anything like real religion.

[luminosity]

I just have to figure out what that is -- and why my credibility is less than that of Bill O'Reilly to people who have known me my entire life.

Seein' as how we both pay attention to the red letters --

Mark 6:4 -- But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

Another way to look at it is "familiarity breeds contempt." You can be (and are, IMO) a genius, but your mama is going to remember changing your diapers and punishing you for sucking your thumb and being appalled at your one-time bad behavior at Aunt Pat's. She's not EVEN going to see that you're speaking the truth. It's SOOOO frustrating and exasperating, but you gotta keep keepin' on anyway.

[pet, pet]

OH! I'm at Jaime's for the next couple of days, and I'm watching I-Man till she gets home from work tonight around 2 am. I shall report!

[ta-wanda.livejournal.com]

This is the damnedest thing.

First of all, I've never run across anyone else as an adult who was raised in the same church as I was. Although I think ours may have had a different slant, depending on the preacher at the time. I remember endless sermons about the evils of Catholicism and the end of the world. But there were only kind of non-judgmental reference to the fact that Paul may have been homosexual. I never remembering any anti-gay sermons or teaching. They were mostly about looking at your own sin and letting everyone else take care of their own business. However, I do remember in teen Bible study, giving the preacher's wife a particularly hard time, because I questioned most of what was discussed.

The other thing is my father's sudden addiction to Bill O'R's show. My Dad is 83 and a life-long news obsessive. He has probably an eighth grade formal education, but has always had amazingly broad range of knowledge and interest. He and I have come independently to the same opinion, usually on the liberal-to conspiracy-theory end of the continuum, on many topics for many years. (My mother refuses to discuss or hear about current events.) Dad has his own tv tuned to the news all the time he is awake. Because of his health, he now rarely leaves the house.

I could not understand why all of a sudden this jerk was Dad's new hero. After the first couple of times he praised the "no spin" and my automatic reaction--"that ignorant a***" or something similar-- we both knew not to bring it up. But I could not reconcile what I know to be my Dad's long-held thoughtfully-formed beliefs with his new attachment to this guy. What you said makes absolute sense. That's it. I never would have figured it out.

It makes me think, now, of those old televangelists. They appealed to lonely people and made them feel like family in order to make them feel good about sending them money. It had nothing to do with religion. I think in a way, this has nothing to do with politics. It's the same thing W has done. And the shopping channels. It has nothing to do with logical argument. It has to do with the need for human closeness and community. To me this is just unbearably sad.

I'm glad you shared your thoughts on this. It has helped me think about things a little more clearly.
Donna

[thefakeheadline.livejournal.com]

Huh. So what did they think of the whole Bill O'Reilly sex scandal thing, and Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction? I can actually see people downplaying the importance of the former, but the latter is just so...blatantly hypocritical that it sort of boggles me.

My father watches Fox News a lot too, and it makes me incredibly twitchy. He's gotten angry at me for making a running commentary on it, but not as heatedly as it sounds like your family does.

[heresluck]

Fox is very very good at what it does and the faces it projects are systematically created to make America love them. Not enjoy them or respect them or trust them -- they want so much more than that - they want your love.

This is really, *really* insightful. Wow. I am sitting here rethinking stuff on this basis.

Cool.