Fox News Alert, Alert, Alert, Alert
Reported by Melanie - April 25, 2005
Today (April 25, 2005), Your World w/Neil Cavuto, advertised as the place to get "news and insight on Wall Street and other market activities, while wrapping up the business news of the day," went wild with FOX NEWS ALERTS (Fox's version of "breaking news") during the first 11 minutes of the show.
3:59 p.m. ET Cavuto: "Ok Shep. Thank you very much. We are going to be going to Atlanta very shortly where authorities are going to spell out what seems to be very sad news indeed, that the bodies of those two toddlers have been found. (Fox switches to a full-screen picture of the darling little boy and girl missing there.) Ah, we will be going to Atlanta in just the next couple of minutes."
"We might be going to Crawford, Texas as well, where high ranking officials in the Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, are announcing they did get some concessions out of the Saudis here, we just don't know what those overall concessions were." (The picture of the two Atlanta children continues to fill the screen.)
4:00 p.m. ET FOX NEWS ALERT
To Crawford, Texas for Rice and Hadley press conference.
4:04 p.m. ET FOX NEWS ALERT
To Atlanta for a press conference about the two missing children.
4:11 p.m. ET FOX NEWS ALERT
Shot of the "big board" at the New York Stock Exchange showing the Dow up 84.76 points and a seconds-long "report" by Cavuto.
4:11 p.m. ET FOX NEWS ALERT
To a seconds-long "report" by Cavuto about the train derailment in Japan.
Comment: In my opinion, Fox looked silly (and irresponsible) using four FOX NEWS ALERTS in eleven minutes, especially when it used one to announce the closing number on the NYSE (ordinary news for a "business" show), and one to announce the train derailment in Japan (which happened last night). Furthermore, cable news networks open their shows with what they consider to be the most important stories. What Fox opened this "business" news show with was interesting, indeed.
