How Liberal Activists Outfoxed Fox (TomPaine.com)

[marmar]

How Liberal Activists Outfoxed Fox

Submitted by Rick Perlstein on June 19, 2007 - 5:52pm.
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. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/how_liberal_activists_outfoxed_fox?tx=3

[pacalo]

1. There are certainly benefits of being on the "common sense" team. Greenwald has done an amazing job.

I look forward to the day when Faux News becomes a laughing stock for everyone.