headsup: the blog

Here's a charmingly ornate bit of fabrication from the Fox homepage Friday morning,* just to help set the stage for Saturday's "No Kings" festivities. Nothing in the display is actually a lie. "Dethroned" is the sort of verb that, like inflation spiking or a polling lead crumbling, can mean whatever the situation calls for; "as" doesn't imply the same sort of temporal connections at Fox that it does in real life; and "pushes peace post-pandemonium" is word gazpacho that sounds cool when you read it in Anchor Voice. But the overall result is a towering edifice of bullshit.

The headline with the story itself is a bit kinder, but the time link is still there. And the lede ... let's just say it adds complexity:

Speaking to Fox Baltimore, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said federal agencies are concerned that extremist actors may be quietly embedding themselves within the ‘No Kings’ movement and questioned "who is funding this." Duffy did not cite specific intelligence, but his remarks echoed broader administration warnings about potential unrest tied to the protests this Saturday.

"I am all about free speech. I’m all about protest. It’s the great American way," Duffy told the outlet. "I am concerned about who is funding this. Who is paying for it? Who is organizing it?"

Nothing to surprise you there if you've been keeping up with the "broader administration warnings" and the usual Fox din about (ahem) rootless cosmopolitans. But this time, the evildoers actually get a chance to speak:

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, rejected suggestions that the movement had turned violent, saying that the goal was to send a message of unity rather than confrontation.

"The idea that America is a democracy is, at its core, small-'d' democratic. It’s not [the] Democrat [party]; it’s not [the] Republican [party]," she said. "It is the idea that we have a system that is based on checks and balances, where we understand that our elected officials answer to us. And that our votes count and matter."

"At its core that is what this ["No Kings"] is all about. And why people are turning out."

Fine, fine -- what about the dethroning violence and the coast-to-coast arrests?

While most "No Kings" demonstrations on June 14 were peaceful, a handful erupted into violence, leading to several arrests and at least one death. This Saturday, organizers say about 2,500 rallies are planned nationwide.

See if you can see a pattern in the June 14 eruptions that follow:

• Bystander in Salt Lake City killed in screwup by "event peacekeeper."
• Nine arrested at a march in Austin. Charges include interfering with public duties, disobeying a police officer, obstructing a passageway, providing false identification, walking on a roadway when sidewalks were provided, and felony assault of a peace officer.
• "Two people were arrested in connection with a hit-and-run crash at a "No Kings" protest in Southern California on June 14. ... The SUV driver veered toward marchers in Riverside, east of Los Angeles, and struck the woman, according to investigators."
• Three arrests in Ocala, Fla.: "arrested for battery after allegedly pushing a protester ... arrested for battery and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon after police said he pushed a protester while wearing brass knuckles ... arrested for battery after allegedly hitting someone with a cardboard sign."
• Culpeper, Va.: Goober "intentionally accelerated his vehicle into the dispersing crowd," striking at least one person." But back to our Fox narrative:

... Yet even as those events challenge the "peaceful" framing,** a different variable looms: the possibility of paid agitators or external provocateurs. Adam Swart, CEO of Crowds on Demand, warned that "No Kings" is susceptible to such infiltration.

"My concern is that there are forces — some domestic, some maybe foreign — that actually want to pull America apart," he said.

If past is prologue, then, expect some breathless Fox tales of mayhem over the next few days. Just be careful not to read the stories or you might find out which side is doing the vast bulk of the erupting.

* No. 8 story, around 10:35 a.m. Eastern US
** Framing scholar here. No, they don't

The runaway leader, to no one's surprise, is Kamala Harris. (The only other entrant is Karine Jean-Pierre, from which you may draw conclusions.) The term is sporadic in 2022 and 2023, with nearly as many unique "word salad" headlines during three months of the 2024 campaign (9) as in the months preceding (10). Except in two cases sourced to other networks' programs, all of these are sourced primarily to social media comments.

In the gaffe category, Joe Biden is the champion with 35 unique "gaffe" headlines. Harris has 7, other Democrats have 8, Jill Biden has 3, and -- surprise -- Donald Trump has 1 ("Haley seizes Trump gaffe to suggest he may not be 'mentally fit' to be president," during primary season).

Stay tuned.

Fox News seemed to have a little bit of trouble settling on a top story Saturday morning, so let's play an agenda-setting game. Assuming that the news doesn't tell you what to think, how would you describe the issues that Fox News wants you to think about? (It's perfectly all right to take a nontheoretical detour here and there -- like, how exactly do you get to be an influencer by being silent? -- but do try to keep an eye on the ball.)

First up, captured around 8:30 a.m. Eastern US: Silent no more!

Comfortably seated in her home on a chalk-colored couch adorned with navy blue pillows, Cassie Clark, an influencer who makes North Carolina-centered content, recalled the moment a man was "berating" her in front of her teenage daughter for wearing a Charlie Kirk shirt.

"He started just berating me that Charlie Kirk didn't like people like him. Every time I would try to respond, he would start speaking over me," Clark told Fox News Digital.

"Rather than waiting on his group to come downstairs, he ended up walking across the street and sitting at the post office, because he didn't want to sit near us.... So I got on X, and I was frustrated, and I wrote a post about it [which] blew up," she continued.

Clark shared that while some of the responses to her post on X were "extremely negative," there were commenters who "reached out and praised" her for speaking up.

The mother revealed that other influencers shared their fears of speaking out, telling Clark that if they were to "speak up" they would "lose sponsors" and "lose brand deals."

"To me, that's absolutely insane," she relayed. "We shouldn't be in a place in America where you can't say what you truly believe and you have to worry about getting pushback or losing money or losing a job over it when you're talking about something that half of the country agrees with you on. That's crazy."

No doubt they'll be glad to hear it over at Paramount. But by around 10, we have another top story:

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited the ICE facility on Tuesday and Portland Police Bureau Chief Bob Day noted that authorities had the vicinity cordoned off for the occasion.

But the perimeter was removed on Wednesday, according to the report.

According to the City of Portland, a message to Day from U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon Scott Bradford stated, in part, that "all federal officers must be able to come and go from the ICE office without harassment or hindrance" and that "Portland must create a perimeter around the ICE office." He specified that this "perimeter must be at least as large as the perimeter state and local police set up today for the Secretary's visit."

The city also indicated that in a message to General Counsel for DHS James Percival, Mayor Wilson noted, in part, "You have requested that federal officers be able to ingress and egress from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility without hindrance. The Mayor and our local public safety professionals will continue to evaluate the situation on the ground, and they will continue to make public order decisions based on what they believe will be in the best interest of Portland and our community."

And yet another story has moved into the lead position by 11:30-ish:

Social media has been littered with posts in recent weeks featuring elected officials and pundits dismissing concerns about Antifa violence as simply an "ideology" rather than an organized effort, which Ngo argues is a message driven by tacit support of the cause.

"It is an ideology, but Neo-Nazis organize around an ideology, jihadists organize around an ideology, so what's your point really? The point you're really trying to do, when people bring that up, is to run cover for Antifa because these people on the left know that organized militant Antifa networks themselves and individuals operate as shock troops for their cause.

"They have the same enemies, they want the same outcomes in terms of the institutions destroyed, and they want the political opposition intimidated into silence and disengaging from the political process."

(Sure, it's a little sloppy to leave the subject's first name out of the story, but it's not like you don't have a headline and a video link to tell you it's Andy Ngo.)

So, with inflation plummeting, oil flowing, the world at peace, China hungry for US soybeans and American industry the envy of the world again -- what issue tops the media agenda at the Fair 'n' Balanced homepage?

It seems sort of a truism of the whole agenda-setting project that when an issue (think Vietnam, civil rights or the 1968 campaign in the original Chapel Hill study) rises in salience, it's because something new happened that day in Vietnam, civil rights or the 1968 campaign. One of the striking things, then, about the administration's (and Fox's) crusade to make Portland a front in the New War on Terror® is how often the same tale resurfaces as fresh news. The latest outrage, in short, may have already done its work in 2022 or 2023 or 2024, and Tuesday evening's No. 6 story is a case in point:

Portland, Oregon, business owners sounded the alarm over the city's crime crisis Tuesday as President Donald Trump faces legal roadblocks in keeping federal troops on the ground to help mitigate the problem.

"We need help here," said Amy Nichols, whose local business has been the victim of 10 break-ins.

After years of struggle, Nichols believes the president’s push to keep National Guard troops in Portland could help shift things in the right direction and draw greater attention to the problems locals face.

Sounds outrageous enough, but ... we said "business owners," didn't we?

... Loretta Guzman, owner of Bison Coffeehouse in Portland, has had her own run-ins with crime.

She previously told Fox News about her plans to install bulletproof glass after criminals shattered her coffee shop's windows, but crime also invaded her personal life when she heard gunfire while in bed one night.

There really ought to be a Groucho Marx line in that, but let's get back to "previously" for a moment. The link in the text goes to a January 2023 clip (the bit about installing the bullet-resistant glass, which also resurfaces with a May 2024 story), which seems like it might be related to this December 2022 story:

PORTLAND, Ore. – Residents of Oregon's most populous city dealt with unprecedented homicides, rising property crime and a general feeling of "lawlessness" during 2022, but Portland leaders have taken some steps to set a different tone for the new year.

"The rise in crime and the houseless and homeless population, that continues to be a challenge that I think the city is starting to get their arms wrapped around," business owner Katherine Sealy told Fox News.

... Police response times to emergencies hit levels not seen in at least a decade, according to Portland Police Bureau data, with the average high-priority call waiting upwards of 20 minutes for a response in October. Loretta Guzman, whose café was vandalized after advertising a Coffee with a Cop event, said her customers tell her it's like the police have "almost disappeared."

Which definitely seems kin to this November 2022 story:

PORTLAND, Ore. – Violent crime is rising faster in Portland than other parts of the country, but some residents say it seems like police aren't around when they need them.

"It's like they almost disappeared," Loretta Guzman told Fox News.

Guzman owns Bison Coffee House in North Portland, which vandals targeted in early October after advertising Coffee with a Cop. Guzman said she decided to host the event because she heard complaints about safety in the city from her customers over the past couple of years.

And, of course, to the original:

PORTLAND, Ore. – An ugly, dark feeling gnawed at Loretta Guzman's stomach when she went to bed on Oct. 4. Negative comments had poured in on social media as soon as she posted that she would host Coffee with a Cop the next day at her North Portland coffee shop.

She prayed and went to sleep.

By 2:47 a.m., six masked vandals had smashed her windows and sprayed paint throughout her entire store.

(Here's a "Fox & Friends" clip from that month, in case you're bored.)

1) Kamala Harris utters complete sentence with embedded relative clause, perhaps repeating a determiner phrase for emphasis
2) @RNCResearch (or @LibsOfTikTok) posts clip to Twitter, with comment about "word salad"
3) Intrepid Fox reporter pastes in quote-tweets by six or seven Usual Suspects from its stable of right-wing influencers and commentators (only a very small proportion of them -- let's be fair -- known to be on the Kremlin payroll)
4) "Fox News reached out to Harris' office for comment"

So even in spring 2024, having Kristi Noem on the receiving end is, let's say, anomalous. Here's how it plays out:

Noem’s post received nearly six million views in only a day, and courted a wave of horrified reactions on the social media platform, even from among her conservative fans.

Perplexed at why she shared the story, independent journalist Tim Pool* asked, "did she just intentionally end her career?"

Conservative influencer duo The Hodge Twins remarked, "Telling everybody you shot your young dog and promoting your book at the same time? wtf, this is wild."

Popular pro-Trump account "Catturd" seemed to take the story personally ...

New York Post columnist Miranda Devine commented, "No. Not normal. Shameful."

"Florida’s Voice News" CEO Brendon Leslie let Noem have it ...

Independent reporter "Publius"** made a pun out of the anecdote ...

When asked by Fox News Digital, Noem's staff had nothing to add beyond Noem's initial response to The Guardian's post.

No signs yet that social media has exploded over "South Park," but Secretary Noem is back in Fox's good graces nonetheless.

* Speaking of payrolls ...
** Using the handle @OcrazioCornPop, if you've been wondering how some themes keep surfacing long after the, erm, fact.

Every now and then, the entirety of how Fox News constructs the world is captured in one screen grab: here, the top 10 stories a bit after noon (Eastern US) on Sunday. My favorite is toward the bottom, but enjoy a few highlights of sourcing and news practice on the way.

Our top story: Donald Trump's daughter interviews three agents ("Trump's ICE officers" in the url) who are concerned that liberal rhetoric makes it hard to wear your brown shirt to the mall anymore.

Second position: Blue cities are bad! (Fox interviews woman about June shooting; the reference to the Fourth of July as "this weekend" raises some contextual questions. Reader comments give a bit more of a sense of what the story is doing there.

Third position: DNI Gabbard goes on a Fox talk show to make the same fictional claims she made in a Fox talk show on Friday.

Fourth position: Mission accomplished! Incredibly inspiring! Pay no attention to those liberal networks and their talk of "firings" and the personnel turmoil at the Pentagon.

Fifth position: It's tough out there for a supermodel, especially when talking to magazines about recording the audiobook for your new memoir.

Sixth position: Caitlin Clark's acting like a liberal! Better quote the OutKick guy and friends complaining about those uppity women on Twitter.

Seventh position: iStock your friend when you need to illustrate a story about TikTok users complaining about the menu. Good thing the Right People are in office or we'd have to listen to a lot of complaints about beef prices.

Eighth position: Food website reads online reviews!

Tenth position: People go to church outside!

The Oscar-winning film was inspired by the real-life von Trapp family that fled Austria to escape the Nazi regime. It tells the tale of a 1930s governess who watches over the large family and their widowed father, with the help of music.

Sorry, but as a regular reader, I'm confused. Isn't it supposed to say MIGRANT CARAVAN when a bunch of ungrateful people illegally cross the border with their kids?