Thursday, March 22, 2012

WHAT FOX TALKS ABOUT WHEN IT DOESN'T TALK ABOUT THE TRAYVON MARTIN SHOOTING

Curious that this is the lead story at FoxNews.com right now, at a time when much of the non-Fox news media is talking about the Trayvon Martin case (and Fox, of course, isn't):




This is hardly breaking news -- a "Gun Sales Soar" story could have been written at very every moment in America since the election of Barack Obama (and in fact, such stories have appeared throughout the past three and a half years). (And never mind the fact that the "restriction fears" are figments of the right's imagination.) So why this now?

Fox simply can't find a way to approach the Trayvon Martin story that will please its audience and advance its propaganda aims. Martin is too sympathetic. George Zimmerman is too much of a delusional mook with anger management issues.

So if Fox can't figure out how to skew the public's reading of this case, it'll send out a countermessage, one that will make perfect sense to Fox's viewers as a comment on the case even if no direct link is ever stated: Pay no attention to those people who are crying over that kid's death, because they're only doing it so they can grab your guns.

I should note that the Fox front page does link to stories about the police chief in Sanford, Florida, tempirarily stepping down and about the "stand your ground" law -- but they're both just AP wire-service stories, with no actual Fox content. The one original piece is an op-ed from the Florida legislator who wrote the law, in which he swears the law didn't cover what Zimmerman did. But none of this gets banner headlines. Fox can't spin the story, so it's conjuring up imaginary gun-grabbing and trying to make that the real gun news right now.

4 comments:

  1. That's an excellent summary Steve.

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  2. Geraldo went on FOX and said kids of color shouldn't wear hoodies. While his actual words seem to be reflecting very real fears I've heard from African-American friends regarding their own children and racial stereotyping, FOX will likely spin this into a "blame the victim" scenario regarding clothing choices.

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  3. Yes, that's the kind of advice a lot of non-white parents give to their sons -- but they know it's unjust, and Geraldo said what he said as if he doesn't know that.

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