More than 50 people turned out to watch a screening of two documentaries critical of American broadcast media, particularly television news.

Neighbors for Peace, an Evanston-based activist organization, sponsored the screenings of Robert Greenwald’s “OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism” and Amy Goodman’s “Independent Media in a Time of War” on Sunday at Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave..

“OutFoxed” claims that the Fox News cable channel consistently skews its reporting to support its underlying conservative ideology and in effect acts as an “adjunct” of the Republican Party.

The documentary relies primarily on numerous clips from Fox’s broadcasts, as well as on interviews with media activists, former employees of Fox and other broadcast news outlets, internal Fox memos and a few anonymous sources.

The piece does not include interviews with Fox representatives, though it does include clips of public statements by Fox founder Rupert Murdoch and other Fox officials.

“We thought that it was important for people to understand how Fox has been exposed as a propaganda organization with a right-wing ideological preference,” said Chicago resident Dale Lehman, a Neighbors for Peace member and organizer who helped select the film for the screening.

The film was partially financed by MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress, both liberal activist groups.

Audience members chuckled at various points during the film, such as a segment from a Fox broadcast — intended to illustrate the channel’s alleged religious bent — that asked, “Why is Jesus so popular right now?”

They also applauded during a portion of the documentary that showed Jeremy Glick, whose father worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, arguing with Fox news anchor and commentator Bill O’Reilly on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”

During a discussion between the films, some audience members cautioned that, though the Fox News Channel might be more obviously biased, other corporate-controlled broadcast news outlets are not necessarily more reliable.

“I think it’s a matter of style, not content,” Evanston resident and Neighbors for Peace member Laura Paz said. “Let’s not be fooled by the other ones, either.”

Paz’s point was echoed by the second documentary, Goodman’s “Independent Media”, which argues that the U.S. broadcast media consistently display a bias in favor of the status quo and give too much deference to government and establishment views.

Goodman’s piece specifically focuses on the media’s portrayal of the Iraq war, which Goodman claims relied too much on the information from reporters embedded with military units and downplayed the casualties among Iraqi civilians and non-embedded journalists.

“This is just to show how low the media have gone,” Goodman says in the film. “If this were state media, how would it be any different?”

Goodman’s piece “provides a very concise analysis of the information we’re not getting” from the mainstream media, Lehman said.

Chicago resident Marilyn Hartman said she missed “OutFoxed” when it was playing in Chicago theatres and learned about Sunday’s event from a listing in the Chicago Reader.

“I changed my plans to make the movie,” Hartman said. “I’m concerned about the message that citizens are not getting from the media.”

Evanston resident Elizabeth Mertic, the group’s treasurer, said she was encouraged by turnout at the event and said she hoped the event might lead attendees to examine the media more critically.

“I hope (people) will not rely on these TV programs for the news, and they will talk to their representatives in Congress and they will talk to their neighbors,” she said.

Reach Michael Beder at [email protected].