Even MAGA-verse journos say today’s news business is about making sausage

Dispiritingly, even the guys who put out the news watched by the triumphalist Trumpian right realise it really is about making…sausage.

By which I mean, the Fox News folks acknowledge that getting a news broadcast together is not really a glossy, show-quality reel, but in practical terms, a messy and unpleasant process best not observed by the public.

Let me explain via @Semafor’s excellent post on the subject.

Semafor drew attention to Fox News host Jesse Watters’ breakdown of how the news works today. Mr Waters said: “Someone says something on social media, Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it, and by the time it reaches everybody, millions of people have seen it.”

And then there were the observations of Bret Baier, host of Fox News Special Report anchor and the network’s chief political anchor. Mr Baier told Semafor what his work entailed: “My job…is to be like an ice hockey goalie trying to prevent the bad pucks from getting through, and there’s a lot of bad pucks that come at you on social media and elsewhere.”

Both opinions led Semafor to offer this takeaway. Even though news is “totally reactive”, it said, “that’s a fairly accurate description of how far up the news cycle food chain you have to go before you encounter a verified fact”.

Geez.

You don’t have to be a journalist and teacher of journalism to have your heart sink.