The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine

Fox News gets subjected to a strong dose of investigative journalism in this book by the leaders of "news watchdog organization" Media Matters for America; the resulting portrait is at best unflattering and at worst sinister. Brock (The Republican Noise Machine) and Rabin-Havt present their evidence, beginning with the "Rise of Roger" Ailes, Fox president and, according to the authors, the driving force behind the network's transformation from conservative news source to mouthpiece for the Republican Party. The instances of fear-mongering are so absurd they would be funny if they weren't so pernicious: Glenn Beck saying to Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the House of Representatives, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies;" comparisons of liberals to Hitler and Nazis; the spread of the claim that President Obama's health care reform included "death panels;" Beck saying on air that Obama has a "deep-seated hatred for white people; and so on. In this diligently documented book, Brock and Rabin-Havt leave us with the warning that "the single most important player" in the upcoming election will be none other than Fox News. Photos. (Feb.)