OutFOXing Themselves

If any object has become a universal target of revulsion for the global left wing, FOX News fits that particular bill.

It isn't all that hard to see why the left wing hates FOX News -- describing itself as "fair and balanced", the network is actually unabashedly conservative.

Nobody should realistically question this. The network has employed a number of left-wingers within its organization, but as OutFOXed notes, they have tended to be particularly weak.

But aside from this, OutFOXed fails to answer one important question: why, precisely, does this matter?

OutFOXed closes with an argument in favour of something akin to the Fairness Doctrine -- the Fairness Doctrine if necessary, but not necessarily the Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine was a legislative framework that required media outlets to present equal time from each of the two predominant points of view (the conservative view and the liberal view).

They insist that such a framework is in the public interest.

But there is one lingering question that the producers do not answer:

Just how far should this extend? And just how far should the public interest extend?

Two of the principal supporters of OutFOXed are MoveOn.org and Media Matters for America. Like FOX News, Media Matters for America is unabashedly ideological -- in this case, they're a self-described progressive think tank, dedicated to researching conservative media bias.

If the public interest requires a fairness doctrine-esque framework in order to force balance into the news media, perhaps that same doctrine should foce balance of perspectives into think tanks -- like Media Matters for America, and its conservative alternative, NewsBusters.

Interestingly enough, now that MSNBC has made the same transition OutFOXed attributes to FOX News (attack dog to lap dog), one doesn't hear individuals like Robert Greenwald citing MSNBC as evidence that such a framework is needed.

Perhaps the producers of OutFOXed never had any such thing in mind. After all, if they curbed the unabashedly conservative FOX News just to curb MSNBC alongside it, they would just be outfoxing themselves.