Fox News Blast: Next Week, Somebody Dies!

If Paul Verhoven produced the news, he'd have a blonde babe narrate scenes of destruction and carnage. What? Fox created a segment like that already? It's not as graphic as Paul would like, but it's a step in that direction. It's called, the Fox News Blast.

Fox News Blast is featured as a content provider on You Tube. I never heard of this, but apparently it started sometime last year. "The Blast" is not to be confused with the famous "Fox News Alert," which started as a way to announce catastrophes and abducted children on their cable network, but now is abused to cover celebrity news as well, as shown in the Robert Greenwald documentary Outfoxed.

Well, The Blast is adrenaline-fueled action and entertainment, pure and simple. They even featured a video of Taliban executing a foreign translator and the execution of a drug cartel member by rogue Mexican police that is deemed to graphic for viewing over a corporate firewall.

Sunbeam Television (owner of Fox 7 in Miami, and WHDH 7 and CW 56 in Boston) is a pioneer in sensationalist coverage of events and local crime. There was a race to bottom during the 1990s to see which local newscast could 'bleed' the most. It is possible that Fox has kick-started another race to capitalize on viral and mobile video (they offer these clips on AT&T and Amp'd mobile phone services). If CNN and MSNBC start doing this, we've crossed another threshold.