There are things you can say on any given Monday, and there are things you can say on the Monday two days after America’s 250th birthday, on a television program watched by millions, and “I feel unsafe when I see a lot of American flags in a neighborhood” is technically the second kind, which Sunny Hostin, co-host of “The View”, said on July 7, and which Fox News and Breitbart have been covering with the energy of people who cannot believe their luck.
Hostin said, per Fox News: “If I see a lot of flags, I’m now nervous… When you’re in a neighborhood and you see lots of flags, it’s not what I think of as patriotic.” She said the American flag has been “co-opted” by White supremacists, making dense flag display a signal she reads as threatening rather than patriotic. This argument has a documented basis in the overlap between American iconography and extremist aesthetics, and is an argument that requires approximately zero additional amplification to become a Fox News segment, which is why Fox News ran it under the headline “The View co-host Sunny Hostin laments suddenly feeling ‘unsafe’ in neighborhoods with American flags” the same week the country put fireworks in the sky over every state simultaneously.
The Outnumbered panel “slammed” her comments, per Fox News, which is the verb Fox News uses when a panel of five people agree with each other on camera. Breitbart’s headline read: “ABC’s Hostin: American Flags All Over the Community Make Me Feel Unsafe.” Both outlets were accurate. The statement was made. The timing was July 7. America had its 250th birthday four days earlier. Trump gave a 37-minute speech about how America is the crowning achievement of human history. The Brooklyn Bridge caught fire while he praised it.
Hostin is a lawyer, a journalist, and a television personality who has made controversial statements before and who was presumably aware that this one would produce this result. The result was produced. The flags remain.
When a television host says American flags make her feel unsafe two days after the 250th birthday, and the coverage lasts longer than the comment, who exactly is the communication strategy for?
Sources
Fox News: ‘The View’ co-host Sunny Hostin laments feeling ‘unsafe’ in neighborhoods with American flags
Breitbart: ABC’s Hostin: American Flags All Over the Community Make Me Feel Unsafe
