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June 14, 2023

PBS and Fox offer dueling chyrons about Trump and Biden

By Andrea Widburg

Chyrons are the descriptive passages the media run at the bottom of the screen to give context to videos. I believe they started back when CNN was endlessly played with the sound off in airports and bars. Now, they serve as another way for a media outlet to provide a little editorial fillip to the stories it reports. The Trump indictment offered the opportunity for the people behind the scenes at PBS and Fox News to have their say, and the different points they made were stunning.

PBS, which obtains significant monies from taxpayers, either via money sent directly to PBS or money sent to its nationwide affiliates, used its chyrons to remind people that leftists expect Trump to spark a violent uprising:

If you’re having a bit of trouble viewing what PBS wanted its viewers to take away as it played footage of Trump’s angry rebuttal to his indictment, here’s what the chyrons display:

CONTEXT: Violent rhetoric has escalated in online forums and far-right militia groups since Trump’s federal indictment. Experts warn that inflammatory rhetoric from elected officials or people in power can prompt individual actors to commit acts of violence.

I’m sure you recall PBS’s enthusiastic ideological support for the BLM / Antifa / George Floyd riots, complete with hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage and a couple of dozen deaths. However, when a former president expresses his outrage that his political opponent is trying to imprison him to avoid an election challenge, that’s when PBS gets concerned.

Meanwhile, the chyron writer at Fox News had a different take on things:

I’ve been disenchanted with Fox News since it took Tucker Carlson off the air, but I must say that the outlet’s chyron writer working is a genius. I wonder, though, for how long he or she will be employed. Fox’s tight-lipped silence when asked for commentary suggests (although does not prove) that it isn’t pleased:

(It’s also possible that the NY Times, as has become the norm for leftist outlets seeking commentary, didn’t give Fox time in which to reply or made clear that the reply would be used, not in a factual way, but as a cudgel against Fox and conservatives generally.)

What Fox should have done is said that Biden is so far outside of American political norms, and so far within the norms of tyrannical nations, that it completely supports the chyron and its author. Not only would that have been a bold departure from the quisling way conservatives routinely respond to leftist challenges, but any such statement about Biden would also have been the truth.

By the way, just to give a little context to the leftist media’s interest in reporting actual news, this tidbit from the Media Research Council is noteworthy:

Trump does what all presidents have done and what they have the unique, plenary power to do, and the media can’t stop talking about it as if it’s the crime of the century. Meanwhile, there’s apparently hard evidence that the current President took massive bribes while Vice President to influence American public policy (and potentially lead to costly, bloody war), and it’s crickets.

Image: Fox News screen grab.

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