So we did actually have the House Party this weekend which turned out to be a lot of fun. We got a eclectic crowd, from young couples to older activist couples to a guy who was trying to convince Heidi and I that by 2008 we wouldn’t need technology because we would all reach a higher consciousness (I’m not kidding). I’ve got a photo here of most of the group in my living room (still at my apartment):

Like I said, interesting mix of people. I’ll talk more about the movie in a minute, but I also wanted to point out that MoveOn did an amazing job with the conference call after the movie. Essentially, the house party “agenda” was to watch Outfoxed then join an online conference call at 8:45 ET with Al Franken, Robert Greenwald (the director), and the MoveOn folks. The conference call talked about the actions that MoveOn is going to take to get Fox News to stop using the “Fair and Balanced” slogan in their advertising as it’s misleading and false advertising. To that end, they’re sending a complaint off to the FTC to have them ask Fox to stop using the slogan (more on this later).

This was the conference call interface (I hooked up my PowerBook to my TV to let everyone see it better):

The circles on the map indicate the location of house parties with color indicating size and concentration of house parties in that area. While we were signed on we saw the total number of online users at well over 16,000 (close to 17,000). Questions could be sent in via the interface and users around the country could see the questions pop up in little windows next to the origin city of the question. They also had online polls when they asked questions with similar color coding to indicate the answers coming in. All-in-all it kept everyone interested, listening, and, most importantly, like they were part of a larger community. In any action like this, with a petition drive and grassroots organization, I think feeling like you’re not just 11 people in a room is important.

As for the action itself and the movie… the movie was good but not quite excellent. In part, I felt this way because I knew a lot of this from reading Al Franken’s book and reading a number of media critique sites on the web. The amazing thing about this movie is that they actually showed the clips that really exposed some of the most egregious behavior of Fox. For example, they show a clip of O’Reilly saying he’s only told a guest to “shut up” once on his show. They then showed about a dozen clips of him saying shut up to different guests. It has an amazing impact to see the sheer boldness of their lying in certain cases. Also, seeing the internal memos was a new thing for me.

As far as the FTC action is concerned, I’m happy they are doing this. A point raised in the movie and clearly articulated by many others is that propaganda in this country is easier than in totalitarian states because people here don’t know to be suspicious of media, especially when places like Fox use slogans like Fair and Balanced or We Report, You Decide. So, go MoveOn and go FTC. The only concern I have is that the action not go so far as to ask Fox to stop being slanted… I mean, I don’t agree with them but they have a right to report what they report and how they do it. The fact that it sells (last I checked it’s the highest rated cable news network in the U.S. by a multiple of 2 or 3) is really a different problem (mostly about media consolidation).

I recommend getting the movie (it’s only $10 at the Outfoxed site) and seeing it. If nothing else, it will give you an appreciation for the subtle tools TV producers have.

Coincidentally, Heidi and I watched the Ali G episode of The Daily Show earlier that afternoon. There was a segment that seemed very related to the whole Outfoxed topic so we ended up showing that at the party before the movie. I’ll try to get that segment on the net soon.

Update: you can see a transcript at Buzzflash.