Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey: How Fox works

Need a nice ripped-from-the-headlines example of how securitization theory interacts with the Rules of Journalism to tilt the public your way? Take it away, Fair 'n' Balanced Network!

As of this writing (around 12:30 p.m. Eastern US on Thursday), Fox's top homepage presence on the (ahem) "Sin City Scare"* was posted at 9:08 p.m.  Wednesday:

... Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a press conference on Wednesday that investigators know who rented the Cybertruck, which was acquired in Colorado, though they are not prepared to identify that person without 100% certainty.

McMahill also said investigators were able to trace the truck through Tesla charging stations. License plate readers in Las Vegas first detected the vehicle at about 7:30 a.m., and McMahill said it traveled up and down Las Vegas Boulevard before pulling into the Trump hotel valet area.

Within 15-20 seconds of pulling up to the hotel, the sheriff added, the vehicle exploded.

Which is certainly better than "nearly** 20 seconds after pulling up to the Trump International Hotel," but that's not the timey-wimey issue at stake here. Consider this, posted at 3:32 a.m. from the (hem) corporate stablemate (kaff) New York Post:

The driver of the Tesla Cybertruck who was killed when the vehicle blew up outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas has been identified as a Colorado resident and Army veteran.

Law enforcement sources confirmed to The Post that Matthew Livelsberger, 37, rented the electric pickup truck that went up in flames New Year’s Day in the valet area of the hotel.

Livelsberger was behind the wheel of the Tesla truck, which was packed with fireworks-style mortars, camping fuel and canisters, during the explosion, News5 reported early Thursday, citing law enforcement sources.

The AP updated its story at 10:46:

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The person who authorities believe died in the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters outside President-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Two law enforcement officials identified the man inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck as Matthew Livelsberger. The law enforcement officials spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.

I would have gone with "iconic dumpster-like vehicle" for the full Elongated Yellow Fruit effect, but that might be just me. Anyway, here's Dear Leader himself at 9:08 a.m.:

What does all this have to with the Rules of Journalism? From somewhere in the cradle or shortly thereafter, we learn the elements -- conflict, oddity, proximity, timeliness and so forth (the Mizzou acronym was actually A COP TIP) -- that go into moving an event up or down the scale of news. These don't stand in a predictable scalar relationship; they interact with each other, with events themselves and with assorted other news priorities to produce the hierarchy you see on the front page or the homepage.

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