Two Ex-Fox Hosts Break Down the ‘Fox Formula’ In Pushing ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
Two Fox News veterans exposed their former network on Thursday by breaking down the “Fox formula” behind the non-stop coverage of the Florida detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Alisyn Camerota and Dave Briggs took to their podcast, Sanity with Alisyn & Dave, to “basically give an anatomy” of Fox’s coverage, presenting four hallmarks of the story that lay bare “how it fits the formula that we know so well.”
On a day when most eyes were turned to the reignited feud between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, one network ignored the story altogether. Fox took a different track, choosing to “hammer home alligator Alcatraz,” as Briggs put it.
The two broke down the four essential elements of Fox coverage, highlighting how each can easily be found in the detention center story.
“Number one, a catchy title, okay,” Camerota begins. “Something also a little exotic sounding. And what this does for Fox viewers, it allows them to feel like they’re in the know about a complicated topic, but with a catchphrase. And so in other words, like Benghazi, Ground Zero Mosque, War on Christmas.”
She continued:
Number two: ignite the horror center of your brain or the outrage center of your brain. So war on christmas, Benghaz, that sounds scary. You know, ground-zero mosque or Alligator Alcatraz, that conjures up something scary, something horror. Immediately your brain is ignited. Number three: have enough angles. Have the story have enough angles that Fox can hammer it home every single hour without ever getting to any substance. So without ever getting to any of the critical thinking analysis that would actually be required for something like comprehensive immigration reform or how we’re going to give migrants due process. You don’t have to do that because you can just say pythons, alligators, Everglades!
Briggs agreed that every facet of the coverage this week fit neatly into Camerota’s framework, laughing that the former host “put me back on the curvy couch.”
“I remember producers telling me in my ear, continue to hammer that signature phrase,” said Briggs.
Briggs described how, when he left Fox after two years of covering the attack by Libyan militants on a CIA station in Benghazi, the story lived on for another year. He attributed its lasting power to having “all the essential elements” of a story pushed by Fox.
In light of Briggs’ remark, Camerota chimed in.
“I might have to add a fourth which is have this be so catchy, Alligator Alcatraz, that it can eclipse other real stories, other real news, whatever Pete Hegseth is really doing or what is happening with the feud with Elon Musk and Donald Trump– have this just be something that is so catchy other news goes away.”
The Fox alums underscored their points by playing a clip of a Fox interview about the detention center with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller– who Briggs refers to as “a combination of Lord Vader and Hannibal Lecter and Voldemort.” In the clip, Miller tells Laura Ingraham, “What reclaims our humanity is when we get these monsters off the street and we put them where they can’t hurt anybody.”
Camerota then described how his language, “scary headline gobbledygook,” falls in with “the Fox formula of hit the outrage center,” before pulling out material from her own time at Fox to further underscore her point.
The former anchor read multiple “rundowns” – descriptions of stories given before a show– that encapsulate the structure. These included an interview with a New Hampshire man who was trying to display Bible passages on the side of the road, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s rent-free apartment, and former president Barack Obama bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia.
“They can take a minuscule story that literally impacts nobody, maybe a dozen people in the corner of Nebraska, and make it a national issue,” said Briggs. “And as much as I laugh, it is somehow a brilliant formula. No one did it better than Tucker Carlson. Take a story that literally impacted nobody and make it a national issue.”
Camerota agreed that the Alligator Alcatraz fell into the same category.
“It is never about problem solving. It’s never about solutions. It’s not about, ‘How do we fix this?’ It’s about drumming up the outrage. And the longer the outrage lasts, mosque at ground zero for a year, Benghazi for three years, the longer the ratings can churn.”
Watch the clip above.
