"It’s the illusion of children’s TV — that your favorite show is as aware of you as you are of it — except that for Mr. Trump, it’s real." https://t.co/1LNVphkHxc
— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) July 19, 2017
Looking at Fox and Friends as an interactive TV show for President Trump a la children's TV is….pretty perfect https://t.co/DqMTsyxK04
— Mark Berman (@markberman) July 19, 2017
And he wouldn’t be in the White House if not for all those busy little GOP elves (and their Russian ‘assistants’). THANKS EVER SO FECKIN’ MUCH, REPUBS!
The producers of children’s television know the key to holding a distractible audience’s attention: interactivity…
It turns out you can apply the same formula to morning news. “Fox & Friends,” the three-hour wake-up program on Fox News, is an interactive magic mirror for Donald J. Trump.
President Trump is the show’s subject, its programmer, its publicist and its virtual fourth host. The stars offer him flattery, encouragement and advice. When he tweets, his words and image appear on a giant video wall. It’s the illusion of children’s TV — that your favorite show is as aware of you as you are of it — except that for Mr. Trump, it’s real.
In January the hosts, “Romper Room”–style, even pretended to be watching Potus, showing a video feed of the White House and asking him to flash the lights on and off if he was watching. (Producers added an effect of the lights flickering, a “TV trick” the hosts later acknowledged.)…
Suddenly, for no other reason than its No. 1 fan, it is the most powerful TV show in America. (It’s also easily the most-watched cable news morning show, averaging 1.6 million viewers in the year’s second quarter, following a post-Trump ratings boost.) Mr. Doocy and Mr. Kilmeade now offer strategic advice on health care legislation. Politicians use the show as a kind of virtual Oval Office pitch meeting. In turn, Mr. Trump’s live tweets set and reshape the show’s focus…
TV news has covered and worried presidents for decades, but it has never been as central to the mind-set of a president as it is to Mr. Trump: reality star, producer and cable-news junkie. But since his amour fou with CNN and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” has gone bad — he claims not to watch them anymore, yet somehow stays deeply familiar with them — he has favored “Fox & Friends,” which requites his love…
Diagraming the feedback loop between “Fox & Friends” and the president requires a very small bulletin board and maybe six inches of yarn. On July 11, the show aired a segment blaming Democrats for “obstructing” Mr. Trump’s nominees. At 6:42 a.m., it posted the segment on Twitter, and Mr. Trump retweeted it quickly. At 6:59, he tweeted… Ten minutes later, that tweet was on the “Fox & Friends” video wall, prompting the hosts to criticize the Democrats again.
“This is anti-American,” Mr. Kilmeade said.
“Well, it’s anti-Trump, ultimately,” Mr. Doocy said.
“Which is anti-American,” Mr. Kilmeade said…
When George Orwell predicted a 24/7 Big Brother video autocracy, he didn’t know it would be aimed at a four-year-old’s comprehension level. But this is America, land of FreeDUMB!
patrick II
Doocy is Mr. Roberts evil twin.
M. Bouffant
Those two can not disappear from the face of the earth quickly enough.
Boussinesque
To be honest, even the title of the show disturbs me. “Fox & Friends”…news isn’t supposed to have friends, news is supposed to have sources and subjects. Not that they care, since they were never really journalists in the first place, but the degradation of our public discourse that Fox is responsible for is something I dearly hope they will be called to account for someday.
NotMax
*frantically searches for the off switch*
@Boussinesque
Maybe descendants of some of the friends company founder William Fox made while he was in the slammer?
Horatius
When will this slander of 4 year olds stop?
Amir Khalid
This Presidency has been one mess after another. No one is even surprised any more, it seems, that Trump is so easily manipulated, in addition to his many other faults. It just gets worse and worse and worse without end.
An update on the guitar saga: I put in the purchase order last night. Went to a 7-Eleven today to make the cash payment. I went to two 7-Elevens, in fact. At both of them, the sales clerk was unable to connect to the payment service’s server, so the clerk couldn’t take my money. I now have one more day to make payment. Grrr. That payment server had better be up tomorrow.
Patricia Kayden
@M. Bouffant: But of course it wasn’t anti-American to obstruct President Obama, right?
Actually supporting the current White House Occupant is anti-American seeing how he’s unpatriotic as hell and puts the interests of Russia above our own.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
It all serves to sweeten the bidding war for the rights to Amir’s Guitar: The Series.
;)
Manyakitty
And people wonder why we can’t sleep.
montanareddog
I suggest they give the show in a more kid-friendly and accurate name: “Trump and Chumps”
satby
@montanareddog: glad to see you commenting! Thank you again!
kilo50
What would I give, what would it take to see that shit eating grin wiped from Doocy’s face ? The two guys appear to be an evil Smothers Brothers and it is obvious which one is Tommy. the eye candy for wife beater wearing, coffee swilling, four day grizzly stubble sporting viewers is lagniappe. Blech!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And Orwell didn’t think it would be aimed at Big Brother himself. WTF?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Ohhh, I get it, and all the shut ins well into their second childhoods and who watch Fox and Friends have the illusion of just being right there in the Oval Office with Trump too so, by golly, they are part of the Trump Administration too! This is like Sheriff Apro letting old folks be part of his pose once a year.
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
Exactly my thought as well.
Uncle Cosmo
(you’re very welcome!)
LeonS
You know, now that they mention it, “Fox and Friends” sounds like the title to a children’s program.