Getting ahead of the story

You have to figure anyone at the Fair 'n' Balanced Network could have written the hed in their sleep -- when Massster speaks, it's going to be "rousing," whether anyone actually saw the candidate eat the rat or not. But just as a matter of not getting caught, don't you think it might help to wait for the speech itself?

President Trump returns to friendly and familiar ground Saturday with a campaign rally in Florida, after a challenging first several weeks in the White House, largely deprived of the voter enthusiasm that helped propel him to his unexpected November win.

Trump will hold the event inside an airplane hangar in the central Florida city of Melbourne. The Republican president visited Florida nearly two dozen times during the 2016 presidential campaign and won the state after Democratic President Obama was victorious there in 2008 and 2012.

Even the alleged kings of the fake news business had updated their story before 8 p.m. Eastern:

Melbourne, Florida (CNN) President Donald Trump, after a month of arduous and, at times, turbulent governing, got what he came for Saturday during a dusk rally here: Campaign-level adulation.

... "I am here because I want to be among my friends and among the people," Trump said to open his rally. "This was a great movement, a movement like has never been seen before in our country or before anywhere else, this was a truly great movement and I want to be here with you and I will always be with you."

As of 8:25, though, Fox was still mired in the future:

... Since his November win and officially entering the White House in late-January, the president has continued to argue that much of the news media has treated him unfairly, which has slowed progress for his young administration.

Trump has continued to use Twitter to sidestep reporters and communicate directly with Americans. But his use of social media has not appeared to spark as much energy as his freewheeling campaign stops -- notorious for chants of “Drain the swap,” "Lock her up" and “Build a wall.”

Saturday’s rally will likely be a return to the old style, which appeared to energize Trump as much as it did voters, if his roughly 70-minute press conference Thursday was a prelude.

So for an hour and a half or more (I first saw it shortly before 7), a transparently bogus story sat at the top of the page. One can only feel cheated; where's that Fox coverage of  the triumphant return of Campaign Trump? At least CNN managed to throw an elbow:

"When the media lies to the people, I will never let them get away with it. I will do whatever I can so they don't get away with it. They have their own agenda and their agenda is not your agenda," Trump said Saturday.

As he bellowed, event attendees turned to the pen where the media stood and booed.

There's an interesting touch, as it turns out, to the late-breaking update:

President Trump returned Saturday to campaign mode -- holding a rally in a Florida airport hangar in which he again railed against the “dishonest media” and repeated his promises to build a “beautiful” border wall, replace “disastrous” ObamaCare and other familiar lines that rallied him to an unexpected White House win.

"Campaign mode," of course, looked a bit different to Fox seven years ago:

Much attention has been given to President Obama's persistent use of "I" when giving speeches to sell his administration's agenda. Is he taking responsibility -- or, as his critics say, is he still in campaign mode? FoxNews.com is tracking the president's speeches all this month and will report back after each to see whether The "I's" Have It.

By that point, of course, the idea of FPS pronouns as an index of Obama's alleged narcissism -- rather than "campaign mode" -- was already well set. Then as now, Fox's relationship with the evidence-based world is a good indicator of its relationship with the grownup practice of journalism. Whatever you might think of the ancient craft, and dissenting opinions are welcome, there's no denying that Fox is the reigning master of mainstream fraud.