An MSNBC Anchor, and a Fox News Snub In Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’

By Alex Weprin 

Marvel’s Summer superhero movie “The Avengers” releases on Friday, and like so many action movies before it, TV news reports become a part of the story once things get going.

In this case *Spoiler Alert* after The Avengers save New York City from alien destruction, a series of news reports focus on the aftermath *End Spoiler*.

At a screening last night, TVNewser noticed one real cable news anchor and a number of cable news channels in the scene, but there was also a bit of a snub.

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MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts appeared as himself, gamely pretending that the world had just been saved by a giant green man and the Norse God of Thunder. In addition to MSNBC, “footage” from the battle ran on CNN, local Time Warner Cable channel NY1 and ABC affiliate WABC ( we didn’t see any real anchors, just clips and an interview with a “witness”). There were also some fictional TV networks, including a fake channel 5, which is a Fox affiliate here in New York.

We also noticed that the only cable news channel not featured was Fox News Channel.

“The Avengers” was distributed by Disney, which owns WABC and ABC. While it is a competitor to News Corp., NBCUniversal (which owns Universal Pictures) and Time Warner (which owns Warner Bros.) had no problem having their networks featured in the film. Apparently either someone at Disney didn’t think Fox News would be covering mayhem in New York, or someone at Fox News nixed the idea of having a network guest-appearance in a superhero movie.

Or maybe we are just over-thinking this. Yeah, it’s probably that one.

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