Journalism gone rogue - a run-in with Fox News

So here I am, back in the States for less than 48 hours and I’ve already had a run-in with Fox News. I didn’t mean for it to happen, really I didn’t. I was at the gym, happily running along to the inane but harmless babble of the Today Show, when it was replaced by some bizarre program called Dr Oz. Despite my near-religions devotion to NPR and Vanity Fair, I only encounter American popular culture en masse about every six to eight months, so things like Dr Oz, whose show appears to be a sort of “Ask the Doctor” advice column come to life, sneak up on me. Today the good doc’s topic, complete with graphics, terrifying diagrams and large-point fonts, was SEVEN DEADLY SYMPTOMS YOU SHOULD NEVER IGNORE!!! Ignoring them was precisely what I endeavored to do; after finally managing to wean myself off self-diagnosis websites and the habit of comparing my skin with Google image results of “mole + melanoma,” Dr. Oz was the last thing I needed. I didn’t want to break my stride to switch the channels on the televisions, so from the remaining options of NFL highlights or Fox, I chose the latter. After all, it’s always good to check in with the propaganda machine of the enemy.

And what a machine it is! Luckily, the machine I was running on was just as robust or the pace I reached as my anger mounted might have proved too much for the poor thing. During the general election in the UK, I frequently felt that sound-bites and slogans had taken the place of genuine commentary – everyone interviewed seemed to be playing Madlibs with the same set of phrases: “fairness,” “value for money,” “out of touch,” and so on. Fox News is even worse. On a “news” report discussing the performance of American students in math and science as compared to students in Asia, the anchor asked the education reporter a series of questions such as “how are we gonna turn this ship around?” which seemed as if their chief merit lay in their universal application to any issue. The economy? Health care? The intractability of Congress? Someone call the Navy, because that’s a heck of a lot of ships to turn around.

Along with the lazy rhetoric, there’s the syntax and the pronunciation. (I think it's catching; even writing about it is making me employ more exclamation marks and capital letters than usual.) Since when is Guantanamo Bay “Gitmo”?! Who introduces a guest like this: “Being that you’ve served on numerous Congressional committees…” Being that?! How clunky can you possibly get? And why do all Fox News anchors, reporters and guests, regardless of regional accent, universally leave the final -g off words ending in –ing? “Well, we’re receivin’ new information from AP and I know you’re gonna be workin’ on that throughout the day, so we’ll be keepin’ you up to date as things develop…” There must be a Fox News pronunciation bureau, a folksy Mr. Hyde to the Dr. Jekyll of the BBC pronunciation bureau (which, despite its imperialistic attitude towards foreign words, does not, to its credit, encourage all employees to sound like the cast of The Archers!). Speaking of the BBC, writers satirizing the American media on The Now Show and News Quiz better watch out – the stuff Fox itself actually comes up with is better than any parody.

Take this, for example.

The last segment I watched featured an interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s stepfather. The Fox anchor said that this would provide insight into Assange’s character. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find a link to this conversation online, but when asked to describe his stepson, the man said something along these lines: “Julian always stuck up for the underdog at school. He was always upset at people ganging up on weak people.” Following this pre-recorded revelation, the camera panned back to the anchor, who repeated, “ALWAYS upset at people!” before cutting to commercial. Dear god. It’s like nineteenth century theatrical melodrama, only people base their lives and votes on it. I’m writing about communism and censorship at the moment, and while the repression of free speech is deplorable, so too is the proliferation of ignorance masquerading the name of information. At what point does such profound misrepresentation of the facts constitute a crime against democracy? How can the First Amendment and “rogue” news outlets coexist?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I do know, however, that from now on, I shall be going to the gym with iPod fully charged and stocked with NPR podcasts.