Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is a 2004 documentary film by progressive filmmaker Robert Greenwald that is highly critical of the Fox News Channel, and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, claiming that the channel is used to promote and advocate right-wing views. The film says this pervasive bias contradicts the channel's claim of being "Fair and Balanced", and argues that Fox News has been engaging in what amounts to consumer fraud.
The documentary was not released theatrically, but rather was distributed in DVD format by the Political action committee MoveOn.org, and sold online through Internet retailers such as Amazon.com, where it was a top-seller in July 2004. MoveOn.org had helped promote the DVD release by taking out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times.
On 18 July 2004, a network of "house parties" premiered this film on DVD throughout the USA. The screenings were synchronized to begin at 9:20 PM Eastern time, and afterwards, a two-way communications link via computer was used to voice opinions and interview several of the people involved in the documentary's production.
The director, Robert Greenwald, used a clip from Eric Clapton's song "Layla" for the film's closing credits in a rough edit, and then read in a magazine interview that Clapton had a long-standing hatred of Rupert Murdoch. He approached Clapton for permission to use the song in the film, and he granted its use... for free.
Certain Murdoch-owned newspapers in Australia refused to run ads for theatrical screenings of the film claiming that the ads were "offensive". The newspapers were not satisfied with the ads until they were pared down to the bare title of the film (without the tagline "Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism"), the name of the theatre and the session time(s) with no accompanying artwork.
The movie's DVD release preceded its theatrical release. The film was initially distributed via internet DVD sales, but strong viewer demand led to a post-DVD theatrical release.
