All in the family

Saturday afternoon's top story at the Fair 'n' Balanced homepage comes to you courtesy of -- let's be sure we have all the characters straight here -- a Fox reporter watching a Fox talk show host tell a different Fox talk show that Peace Is At Hand:

Lara Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Saturday that there is hope that the situation with Iran wraps up very quickly, we are hoping, maybe in the next couple hours.” 

The host of “My View With Lara Trump” made the remark after President Donald Trump held a meeting in the Situation Room of the White House on Friday regarding the war. 

“I think this president wants to do what's right. Period,” Lara Trump said of her father-in-law. “He has never looked at things, 'well this is politically advantageous, so let me do this.' He looks at things as in is this right for America? Is this right for our future security? And that is 100% what you got with this Iran situation.”

Meanwhile (give or take a few minutes; it was posted at 1:16 p.m. Eastern US), the family's other chief peacemaker was busy suppporting his contention that America -- could it have been a dead country only two years ago? -- is BACK and now the HOTTEST country in the world:

Even by the standards of the WWII-era Chicago Tribune's attempts to explain the world through baseball, this one's just weird. We might have the world's shortest-range infield practice in the foreground, except the kid with the bat has gotten set again in a hurry, and the kid at third base is playing really deep, which may be why he's holding his bat by the knob. Or maybe he's the goalie, except there seems to be a translucent baseball at the end of his shadow, unless that's a portal to the underworld. I don't know. But back to Lara at the policy desk:

“Of course the president didn’t want to have a conflict with Iran just ahead of these midterms. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have had to do this. But the can got kicked down the road, it landed in his lap and much like so many other things with this president, he is the one to get the job done, whether we are talking about Maduro and making sure that you know, he is held accountable, whether we are talking about ensuring Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon,” she said.

“Obviously the hope is that this wraps up very quickly, we are hoping, maybe in the next couple hours we get a solution here, but he is going to do what’s right no matter what,” Lara Trump added.

Her interview with the president is set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday.
You may have to scroll a bit,  because the link takes you to the day's Iran liveblog, but if you hang in there, you'll get to the interview itself. Here's a preview:

During the interview, Lara Trump said “I’d imagine if you could have timed things perfectly, having a conflict just in front of the midterm elections at time like this, isn’t ideal.”

“So you have really a very small window, so if you wanted to play that game then you would wait until the midterms are over and then the following hour, you'll attack Iran because they cannot have a nuclear weapon, most people agree with me on that,” Trump responded.

“But then it gets maybe carried into, you know, the next election whether it’s a midterm or not. So you have a very short window for doing anything having to do with war. But I don’t view that window, I view it I have to do what’s right,” he added.

So glad the family has everything figured out for us.

It ain't about the prompts

This is not the end of professional editing in media texts, and the beginning of the end of professional editing in media texts is damn near old enough to vote, so it isn't that either. But it is a quantifiable data point in the study of how and where value is assigned to professional routines.

Your brow might furrow beneath the green eyeshade at several points in the text above (drawn from the day's liveblog, the salience of which is another indicator). "Signalling" or "signaling"? They're equally correct, so if you did what the style manual says, fine (hope you looked first). Hyphenating "-ly" adverbs? If that's the rule, a tip of the hat to you.

But -- because editors should always have at least one brain cell in the gutter -- those may not have been the first to catch your attention. "Diarrhoea" is a correct spelling, but not on my, and CNN's, side of the ocean. A link at the top of the story indicates that the writer is based in London, suggesting that CNN hasn't learned from the utterly dagenham story that called Carolina-Duke a "local derby" when a UK writer was loosed upon the game.

Read more »

So how long did you think ...

 

... it would take for the tale of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner to become an Obama story? If your answer was "oh, about as long as it took for the 'somberly contemplative and unusually conciliatory'* attitude to fall away," take a bow.

Fox, unsurprisingly, is long past being interested in providing news on the attack; its job now is to help make the case for the ballroom. No wonder that a 5:15 p.m. tweet from the former president is at the top of the page, even if Fox's own story (posted at 9:35 p.m.) points out that "law enforcement officials have not formally confirmed a definitive motive as the investigation remains ongoing."

Do stay tuned.

* PBS's phrasing, not mine.

Theory time: Walking around with no legs

Should we be talking about media theory while watching a great power shoot itself repeatedly in the foot (pausing once or twice to reload) while stumbling toward something that might resemble the geopolitical status quo ante bellum, only worser? Well, yeah. So here's a theoretical proposition to toss around while enjoying the morning roundup from Fox News:

Media effects are downstream from media sociology

This is not, of course, meant to start a round of theoretical "mine's bigger" or suggest that one bag of theories has to precede another in all cases. It is to say that when we see a change in public attitude or understanding about mediated events, the odds are that it follows some interesting (and probably measurable) change in media practice. To flip things around and be more specific, a change in whether, where and how often people hear "walking around with no legs" might affect perceptions of the person who says it.

Now, that doesn't mean a lack of attitude change means a lack of media change. Pretty much every news site I look at has adopted a form of the "live updates" Fox is doing in the top position Saturday morning -- basically, liveblogging while wearing a trench coat and a press badge -- and there's no reason to think such a change in presentation form is going to change your attitude about coups, earthquakes, Missing Moms or anything else it's applied to.

Nor do attitudes have to change for a media effect to be present. Should the "live news" feed contain a story every few days whose subject-verb-object motive power comes from "CentCom releases 
photo," it's doing its job if the median Fox viewer's attitude remains  stable at "exterminate the brutes." A counterframe could also try to preempt attitude change; if CentCom (through Fox) is reassuring you that Navy food is perfectly awesome no matter what your cousin saw in USA Today, there's a photo for that too.

But setting aside all the caution against false positives, the media-practice-to-media-effect chain does suggest that when Fox starts quoting Donald Trump verbatim, at length, we should start to keep a careful eye on the parts of the Trump coalition where all the much-touted fractures might be expected.

"At length" doesn't mean "'War and Peace' but with an intermission." If your question has been "what will it take for these people to notice that their cult worships a barking loony?", the answer might be just a couple of sentences -- if the gatekeeping practices at Fox allow those sentences through on the regular. Even if you're rolling your eyes by now at Trumpian chestnuts "they have no leaders, but their leaders are really friendly now" or "walking around with no legs," imagine what the Fox user seeing them, in quotes, for the first time might think:

President Donald Trump said Iran "can't blackmail us" after the country announced they were reimposing restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday morning.

"We have very good conversations going on. It's working out very well," Trump said. "They got a little cute, as they have been doing for 47 years, and nobody ever took them on. We took them on. They have no Navy. They have no Air force. They have no leaders. They have no nothing. Actually, their leaders are ... it is regime change."

Despite Iran wanting to close the strait again, Trump said in the Oval Office that negotiations are "going actually along very well" and promised more information "by the end of the day." Trump also cited how oil tankers are now coming to U.S. ports to fuel up, including in Texas and Louisiana.

"We're taking a tough stand. They've killed a lot of people. A lot of our people have been killed. A lot of your fellow soldiers have been killed over the years by Iran," Trump said, citing how he ordered the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force, in January 2020.

Trump described Soleimani as the "father of the roadside bomb."

"And when you see soldiers or others, but soldiers generally walking around with no legs, with no arms or face that's been smashed, that was Soleimani, it was Iran that did that," Trump said. "So we have a much different view on it than other presidents. They've gotten away with murder for 47 years. They're not getting away with it anymore."

And then imagine what it all might look like the next day, and every few days after that.

Important first-week-of-the-term caution here. If there's thing about media effects to have tattooed on your forehead, it's that one message does not change the world, whether it's Napalm Girl or an invasion from Mars. With that firmly in mind, I'm going to suggest that a testable hypothesis is within reach: regular exposure to verbatim Trump will lead to a decrease in support among Trump partisans. (I was taught that it's rude to hypothesize the null, but yes, this implies it would not lead to significant change among anti-Trump partisans.)

Opposing interpretations are welcome.

Whatever you do, don't mention the ...

Who had "oh, around 1 p.m. Eastern US on March 22" in the pool on how long it might take for President Brainspurs' unprovoked war of choice to fall out of the top 10 at the Fox homepage? Help yourself to another big orange while we review the media agenda that Fox is transferring to the public:

Our top story: "Far-left activist groups and personalities flocked to Havana, Cuba, this week in an effort to protest the economic sanctions imposed on the country by President Donald Trump's administration." That's one way of getting around the question of whether a blockade amounts to an act of war (hint: yeah). Hypocrisy, as you might imagine, is not a normally distributed phenomenon at Fox.

No. 2: Former DHS official goes on "Fox & Friends Weekend" to point out that the next big terror threat is posed by taking our eye off the ball: "It’s just human nature that you're going to be worried about where that next paycheck is cut."

No. 3: OK, technically, the "live updates" feature is a frequently updated check-in on the latest in war news, but here, it's just reminding us how smart and funny the boss is. The story is built around a Trump post on Truth Social, sharing a clip from the premiere of "Saturday Night Live UK." (USA Today says he clipped out the part of the skit in which Starmer says "I know how badly you want to start World War III, and that's great.") 

No. 4: What could scare Fox News into writing favorably about a tenants union? A picture of Barack Obama!* Here, the local Fox station covers a meeting "earlier this month." 

No. 5: Online randos post videos complaining about what other people do, and hospitality experts agree that it happens sometimes.

No. 6: Republican candidate has the answer to California's redistricting plan: Seize the ballots and count them until we like the result. Sheriff Chad is generally running just behind a Fox contributor and former host in California's open primary, but Fox seems fairly fond of him; he was among the top 10 stories every few months in 2024-25 and was the lead story in June 2024 when he released a video endorsing Trump

No. 7: No need to may attention to Trump's Mueller comments when you can run a picture of Rachel Maddow, right? Active blasting at Fox is directional -- Maddow is allowed to blast in the active voice, but only to her left. Here's a bit of the blast in context: "That is because once his investigation and his report were concluded, he was just wildly outmaneuvered by a really serpentine attorney general named Bill Barr, who played really dirty pool when it came to the handling and release of the information from Mueller’s investigation."

No. 8: The only thing better than a celebrity story is a "California Leavin'" celebrity story: Hollywood celebrities pull up stakes and find life better on the farm, in the South, in the mountains, wherever. The actual hed "California Leaving" (or "Leavin'") shows up 10 times across the dataset, along with three cases of "California Fleeing" and assorted variants like California Scheming, Stealing and Screaming. 

No. 9: It's in Detroit, so you can probably write the comments yourself. (This is pegged to a Tuesday announcement, if you've been wondering about the value of time in the Fox equation.)

No. 10: Tom Brady is toward the virtuous end of the villains-victims-virtuous spectrum that many athletes and celebrities fall on. He's among the top stories 42 times in 2022 and 2023. Here, if only he was flaunting bikini snaps in an Instagram post, he'd be proving that age is just a number.

Without the distraction of a kinetic war, the top of the homepage is still a reliable guide to the dangers and delights of Planet Fox. Leftists are a menace everywhere, Trump sees the problems before we do, freeloaders, Obama, and (hem) Detroiters (kaff) are always ready to take advantage of hardworking Americans, and liberals eat their own. Fortunately, there are always a few celebrities and athletes who model the values that made America great. Quite a place, that Planet Fox.

* If only he'd een wearing a tan suit.

 

From your lips to dog's ear

If your first reaction to Wednesday evening's top story at the Fair 'n' Balanced homepage was on the order of "OMG the wine mom agitators are eating the dogs and eating the cats of the people who live there," there's probably a reason for that. And no doubt "going after the dogs" would be the sort of thing for which we have rules of engagement. But let's look a bit more closely at the trail from a 3:45 p.m. Homeland Security* tweet to Our Top Story posted at 7:34 and see how quickly the panic button should be punched.

For starters, the Fox lede introduces a nice bit of syntactic ambiguity:

Federal officials on Wednesday said a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) K-9 was targeted in Minneapolis after an employee at a kennel wrote "ICE OUT" on the dog’s feed chart.

Fox tends to be promiscuous with subordinators (you can add "as tensions reach fever pitch" to almost any headline, even if your heroes had just tamped down the tensions in the previous day's story), but this one goes -- maaaybe -- a step beyond the tweet. Was Dina (no reason to think she is not a Very Good Dog) targeted after someone wrote on her food chart, or does "after" refer to when the federal officials sent their tweet?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said anti-ICE agitators in Minneapolis are targeting CBP K-9s, including a K-9 named "Dina."

"At the kennel where K-9 Dina was staying, it was discovered that an employee had written "ICE OUT" on her feed chart," DHS wrote in a social media post. "THEY’RE EVEN GOING AFTER THE DOGS!"

And that's about the extent of the news, except for this:

It is unclear which kennel Dina was staying at or the current employment status of the employee allegedly responsible.

"It is unclear" here is shorthand for "we have no idea and don't see why we should bother to check," but enough about the Rules of Journalism. The rest is boilerplate: just enough to support another advance in the Everybody Is Mean To ICE saga.

Attackwise, though, there seems to be a bit of a problem. Unlike the brave officers who can hardly sit down for a meal without having to get up and arrest the staff, how does Dina know she's being gone after? Even if she can read (being a Very Good Dog, after all), would she know enough Restaurant English to tell whether "NO ICE" is a drink order or a political statement? Or could it be that the wine mom agitators are actually going after Dina's humans?

It's a decades-old truism of media sociology that a Hearst or a Murdoch doesn't need to hover over the shoulders of the staff to ensure that every headline has just the right number of adjectives -- or which tweet makes it to the top of the page. If you don't know that when you're hired, you'll pick it up as soon as you see someone praised for getting it right or yelled at for getting it wrong. Homeland Security doesn't have to tell Fox what to do; it just has to throw a batting-practice fastball.

* If only there was a German acronym for "secret state police." 

It's $45 at Home Depot

It doesn't take a lot to make a top story at the Fox News homepage,* but a few key hurdles do need to be cleared. Brown People Behaving Badly + Liberal Hypocrisy + Commies + They're Being Mean to Mister Trump Again is hard to beat as a starting lineup:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has officially moved into the historic Gracie Mansion, and he's already hoping to make changes. The mayor spoke to reporters on Jan. 12 and shared his "aspirational hope" to have a few bidets installed in the mayor's residence.

"One thing that we will change is we will be installing a few bidets into Gracie Mansion," Mamdani said. "That’s an aspirational hope. We’ll see if we can get it done."

A prominent New York City Democrat mocked the mayor's idea, painting it as a rich man's fantasy coming from someone who preaches socialism.

Well, now you've got my attention. James Carville? (Nah, not New York enough.) The "Pod Save America" boys? Andrew Cuomo himself?

"He’s been mayor for a minute and now the socialist thinks he’s flush with so much cash he can buy bidets," the prominent Democrat, who asked to remain anonymous, told Fox News Digital.

Oh. 

When speaking to Fox News Digital, the prominent Democrat pointed out the difference between the reaction to Mamdani's "aspirational hope" to add bidets versus President Donald Trump's renovations to the White House's Lincoln Bedroom bathroom.

Trump posted photos of the renovated bathroom on Truth Social in November celebrating the upgrade which included "highly-polished, statuary marble." While the president argued that the renovation was in line with the original vision for the space, historians disagreed and comedians mocked him. John Oliver, the host of "Last Week Tonight," called it "tone-deaf."

The president's renovations to the East Wing ballroom have also drawn criticism and mockery with Democrats taking aim at the president over the project. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during an appearance on MSNBC that Trump "found time to demolish the East Wing of the White House so that he can build a ballroom where he can be celebrated as if he was a king."

The East Wing renovation was mocked on "Saturday Night Live," which did a skit featuring James Austin Johnson as Trump and Miles Teller as Drew and Jonathan Scott from HGTV's popular home makeover show "The Property Brothers." The mockery didn't end there. During a "Weekend Update" segment, Michael Che said he was glad the floor looked "slippery," according to the Architect's Newspaper.

OK, there's one element we've left out of the key ingredients: a blithe indifference to how things work in the real world. Fox doesn't say how close it is to a Home Depot, but over on the other side of the freeway, the Brondell FreshSpa Comfort+ is going for $44.98.* Comrade Mamdani didn't say how many bidets were in "a few," but there's a dual-temperature version for $76.99, with a limit of five per order. Discounts on a couple of Bio Bidet models take them down to the low $200 range. There's no indication in the story of whether Mamdani is feeling handy from all those years in that spacious rent-controlled apartment, or if the  -- how's that, New York Post? -- "petulant and ungrateful" first lady would want to help, but surely some comrade is available to help them keep the total under four (perhaps even three!) figures.

Now, to be objective and all, the 12th paragraph does provide some guesses from a "home-improvement cost and contractor marketplace": an "average cost" of $640 to install a bidet, though "costs can run as low as $40 or as high as $2,000." And, to be scrupulously fair, there is this concluding graf:

New York City's Department of Environmental Protection celebrated Mamdani's announcement, saying that "more bidets = fewer wet wipes."

But the real point, as the afternoon's lead story, is hard to overlook. Mister Trump is just trying to provide a few marble reading racks for all the national defense information that replaces "More Jokes for the John," and those pesky late-night comedians won't give him a moment's rest. You can see how the Fox audience would be refreshed and ready to return to the front lines in Grenland.

As long as we're on sourcing, though, enjoy these opening grafs from another Saturday Fox epic:

EXCLUSIVE: PANGUITCH, Utah — One of Tyler Robinson's last meals as a free man may have been at a roadside steakhouse off the beaten path, according to a Utah restaurateur who called in a tip to the FBI after news of the 22-year-old electrician's arrest in the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

Staff at a mom-and-pop restaurant in Panguitch, Utah, about three hours south of the crime scene in Orem, said a customer who looked like Robinson had eaten alone at the counter on the night of the murder.

"So the gal that served him said that he was quite quiet, kind of shy," the restaurant owner, who said he is not seeking attention about the encounter and asked not to be named, told Fox News Digital. "Usually, if somebody sits at our counter, they like to talk. And he sat on the counter and she said he really didn't want to talk, just wanted to eat and get out."

* 11:57 a.m. Eastern US, Saturday, Jan. 17, in the year of our Lord the 2,026th, if you're scoring along at home.
** $25 additional off your total order if you open a new card account!