The Fox Biz legal strategy: blame the government

Jeff Bercovici of Conde Nast Portfolio has his own take on why Fox Business Network has been filing so many Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits against government agencies to get documents related to the economic meltdown.

Bercovici writes, “Now, nobody’s saying it wouldn’t be nice to know how Madoff was able to run his racket for so many years without ever arousing the suspicion of authorities. But Madoff isn’t the cause of our economic distress; he’s a symbol.

“And that’s what this legalistic blitz by Fox Business is all about: symbolism. In fact, according to CJR, the network, lacking the reportorial resources to make much sense of the thousands and thousands of pages of documents it’s demanding, has no better plan than to put them all online and hope the internet hive-mind can ferret out the good stuff.

“Magee insists the FOIA-palooza isn’t just some ‘wild publicity stunt,’ but acknowledges it’s part of an overall strategy to different FBN from CNBC, which he calls ‘the friend of the CEO.’ But it’s hard to see how Fox can exploit the perception that its rival is in bed with Wall Street while studiously refusing to condemn Wall Street. There’s too much anger out there to redirect it all at negligent referees.”

Read more here.