In case you hadn't heard, it's Chris Christie Cheerleading Week at Fox News. As Media Matters has noted, the on-air push to get the New Jersey Republican into the presidential race has been done in the usual heavy-handed Fox style, with regular bouts of gushing about what a natural leader Christie is. (He's a “warrior”!)
And yes, this obvious partisan push comes in the wake of the revelation that Fox News chief Roger Ailes is a big Christie fan and has been urging him to get into the race. So the way Fox News “journalism” works, is if Ailes is for something, then Fox News is for the same thing.
What that also means in terms of coverage, is that when Fox News gets behind a politician they also hide him (or her) from bad news. The awkward part for Fox is that Christie stumbled into a very large bout of bad news this week when the belt-tightening governor decided to ride in the state's $12 million helicopter to attend his son's baseball game, and then decided to ride in a town car the 100 yards between his helicopter landing spot and the bleachers.
Christie's gaffe became kind of a big deal politically, and has been covered extensively. (Like here, here, here, here, here, and here.)
But guess where the Christie `copter tale has not been a big deal? Fox News. According to TVEyes.com, since the story first broke yesterday, Fox News has mentioned the misstep, briefly, on exactly one program.
That's what “news” coverage looks like when Roger Ailes is in your corner.