In the case of the Buffalo tragedy, is Fox News AWOL? And why?
Shooting? What shooting?
You mean the mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo Saturday that left 10 people dead, and three injured? The one where 11 of the 13 victims were African American? The one where the killer posted a manifesto citing the "great replacement theory" as his motivation? The one being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism? That shooting?
We watched Fox News for an hour and a half Sunday morning, from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., curious to hear their take on this horrific event. Surely there would be something — in the inimitable Fox style. Perhaps an expert saying we shouldn't rush to judgment and call it a hate crime. Or that "woke" liberals were seizing on the event as an opportunity to take away your Second Amendment rights.
We waited and waited.
There was one reference, somewhere between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. A shooting in Buffalo had occurred, Fox told its viewers, and people were dead. But no elaboration, no commentary, no on-the-scene interviews. Perhaps 15 seconds, all told.
Among the topics that were deemed important enough to merit air time: the baby formula shortage, Biden's "two impeachable offenses," the criminal case against a Clinton-aligned lawyer, Michael Sussmann, the Steele dossier — remember the Steele dossier? — and something about chickens in Times Square.
Fox News has the right to its own agenda, just as MSNBC or CNN or CBS has the right to theirs. Everyone spins in their own way. Everyone orders the news based on their conception of what is news.