The image above is provided by the liberal blog ThinkProgress and the short, cranky article that dissects it can be found here. If you're not familiar with the Treyvon Martin story, the confirmed facts of the case be found here. In a nutshell, a 17 year-old, unarmed African American boy was shot by 28 year-old white man named George Zimmerman. So far, Zimmerman's motive is unclear, but a 911 recorded conversation just before the shooting revealed that Zimmerman followed him unnecessarily and reported that Martin looked "like he's up to no good, on drugs or something." Martin had no criminal record to date. Above, ThinkProgress charts the amount of news coverage each of the three major news networks allotted to this story. To only report on the development of this story once is uhm, outrageous. Here, the liberal blog Wonkette eviscerates Fox News for their negligence, so if you're into that sort of thing, you'll enjoy their take down of the outlet they describe as a "steady stream of artlessly jingoistic vomit, spewing forth from helmet-headed hairspray sacks who move their lips while reading important reports on hurricanes and other outrages against Heartland (= white, irrespective of actual location) America." But it's easy to pick on Fox News.
Instead, I'd like to ask whether Fox News' decision to neglect this story reflects their view of their audience as a public or a market. Usually, stories of senseless violence are the sort of thing the public audience thinks it deserves to know about. Coupled with the issue of race, the Martin story is definitely the stuff of evening prime time news. Why did Fox ignore it? Were they worried about offending members of their white audience who sympathize with Zimmerman's fear of blacks? It strikes me that Fox could have still reported the story and weighed in on the issue by coming to the defense of Zimmerman. What's going on here?
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