I've Studied the Trump-Fox Feedback Loop for Months. Its Crazier Than You Think.

[babylonsister]

I’ve Studied the Trump-Fox Feedback Loop for Months. It’s Crazier Than You Think.

By MATTHEW GERTZ
January 05, 2018



On Tuesday night, I, along with many Americans, was shocked when Trump tweeted that he possessed a “Nuclear Button” that was “a much bigger & more powerful one than” that of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Having spent the last three months monitoring Trump’s Twitter feed professionally, I also had a good sense of why this spectacle was unfolding. After pulling up and watching a recording of the previous few minutes of Fox News, my hunch was confirmed: The president was live-tweeting the network’s coverage.

Link to tweet

Everyone has a theory about Trump’s hyper-aggressive early morning tweetstorms. Some think they are a deliberate ploy the president uses to distract the press from his administration’s potential weaknesses, or to frame the public debate to his liking. Others warn his rapid shifts from one topic to another indicate mental instability.

But my many hours following the president’s tweets for Media Matters for America, the progressive media watchdog organization, have convinced me the truth is often much simpler: The president is just live-tweeting Fox, particularly the network’s Trump-loving morning show, Fox & Friends.

It’s no secret, of course, that the president likes to tweet about what he sees on TV. Thanks to diligent reporting from the White House beat, we know Trump often watches several hours of cable news each day via the “Super TiVo” he had installed at the White House. And journalists at CNN, the Washington Post, New York magazine, among others, have compiled lists of Trump tweets they believe were inspired by Fox.

But here’s what is shocking: After comparing the president’s tweets to Fox coverage every day since October, I can tell you that the Fox-Trump feedback loop is happening far more often than you think. There is no strategy to Trump’s Twitter feed; he is not trying to distract the media. He is being distracted. He darts with quark-like speed from topic to topic in his tweets because that’s how cable news works.

Here’s what’s also shocking: A man with unparalleled access to the world’s most powerful information-gathering machine, with an intelligence budget estimated at $73 billion last year, prefers to rely on conservative cable news hosts to understand current events.

more...

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/05/trump-media-feedback-loop-216248

[exboyfil]

1. Dumb and racist

cable news hosts.

"[In the United States] we keep marrying other species and other ethnics..." Ignoring attempts by co-host Gretchen Carlson (who is of Swedish descent) to interrupt him, he added, "See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes... Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody, we marry Italians and Irish.

Brian Kilmeade

In a rational world this man would never be on the air again.

[Fred Sanders]

7. Foxxx is evil and hire evil people. Herr Goering is just one example of the onair scum at Foxxx.

[Phoenix61]

2. That makes so much sense

The idea that Twitler's tweets are part of a plan on his part never made sense to me. He has the attention span of a gnat so there's no way he could follow a plan. Hell, he can't follow a TelePrompTer. That he is just reacting to what he sees fits him to a tee. Wonder what would happen if he watched an actual news show.

[BSdetect]

3. Here is the real worry....

"an intelligence budget estimated at $73 billion last year"

And they still failed to stop the Russians and all the colluders (TRAITORS)?

Treason was happening and they knew but did nothing really?

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Maybe it's the biggest CI operation of all time, and still ongoing

After all, if you're going to catch every one of them, like McCarthy and VENONA didn't, you've got to cast a wide net

[Initech]

4. Fox is no longer a news agency.

It's a foreign intelligence agency with clear hostile intentions, and should be treated as such.

[Fred Sanders]

6. This is so important. Foxxx leading the hound by the nose is beyond scary. MSM, time for truth.

[TeamPooka]

8. President Moron.