NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Fox News was reportedly scrambling Monday to fill the sudden void left by its decision to stop participating in pooled coverage of President Donald Trump, eventually dedicating six consecutive hours of programming to discussing the network’s decision not to cover the president.
The programming change came after Fox News, along with ABC, CBS, and NBC, announced that the television news pool would suspend coverage of Trump’s presidential events following the White House’s ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
“We are taking a principled stand today, and because of that stand, we cannot show you the President,” announced Fox News anchor Bret Baier. “Instead, we’ve brought in a team of body-language experts to analyze how comfortably I am sitting here not covering him, and a constitutional scholar to discuss for the next six hours the historical precedent of us talking about not talking about him.”
The network’s programming department reportedly became particularly concerned when one host accidentally referred to the president by name during a segment about the importance of not covering him, forcing producers to cut to commercial while technicians reviewed the footage for possible violations of the blackout.
At press time, Fox News was reportedly preparing a seventh hour devoted entirely to answering the question of why it had already spent six hours discussing its decision to stop covering Trump, with producers warning panelists that mentioning Trump himself would technically constitute coverage.
