Fox Launches a New Product - A Showdown with Iran - In August

News Hounds
Sep. 01, 2006

Fox presented five - yes, five - segments on Iran today (August 31, 2006) during its "business news" program, Your World w/Cavuto.

The show's opening segment featured Fox reporter James Rosen at the State Department. The chyron that ran during Rosen's segment summed up his report: "Defiant Iran Blows Off U.N. Nuke Deadline."

Next came Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah of Iran who, per Cavuto's introduction, would talk about how the average Iranian feels about what's going. That topic wasn't discussed much, as you can imagine, since Pahlavi hasn't set foot in Iran for 25 years and even if he had he wouldn't have a clue as to how the "average Iranian" feels about anything. The chyron more accurately described the discussion: "Shah's Son on Iran Defying Nuclear Deadline."

After that, Lawrence Eagleburger made another one of his very frequent appearances. His segment was captioned: "Fmr. Secy of State Eagleburger on Iran's Nuclear Defiance."

A few minutes later Cavuto hosted a roundtable discussion with cast members from Fox's Saturday morning "Cost of Freedom business block" on: "Iran & Nukes: Only Obstacle to $2 Gas?"

And finally, Stuart Levey of the Treasury Department was on as the "U.S. official" who claims Iran is the "central banker of terror."

Comment: It's ironic (or maybe not) that August 31 was the date set by the U.N. for Iran to stop enriching uranium. Given the Bush administration's position that, "from a marketing point of view, you don't launch new products in August," the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Though Fox did jump the gun by 24 hours and launched the new product -- a showdown with Iran -- in August, judging from today's coverage, I'd consider it launched nonetheless.