The hearing at peak hours began at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. When Rep. Bennie Thompson ordered the hearing, Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson ignored it. Carlson said the “ruling class” was giving “another lecture on January 6.” He called the audience “propaganda” and was delighted with his refusal to broadcast it. “They’re lying,” he said, “and we won’t help them do that.”
Carlson then lied to himself, saying that “if something remarkable happens” to the audience, “obviously we’ll take it to you right away.” But his show didn’t do that.
When Thompson said January 6 was “the culmination of a coup attempt,” Carlson asked why they cared about the media. Donald Trump barely mentioned it, although the former president’s plot to undermine American democracy was the focus of the hearing. Instead, he talked a lot about Democrats and wondered why other channels were committing “collusion” with the House through audience television. “Because the Democrats and the left are desperate,” said his guest Jason Whitlock.
When Rep. Liz Cheney revealed many of the committee’s findings for the first time, Carlson said everyone knows the United States “could face real problems soon;” implied that Congress should not waste time on the 1/6 investigation; and called Thompson and Cheney “lunatics.”
Carlson sounded like an amateur magician trying to distract children when a performance breaks down: “Look here, not there.” He said: “Gasoline costs more than five dollars. Inflation is higher than it has been in the lives of most Americans. Violent crime is making cities impossible to live in, and more than a hundred thousand Americans used drugs last year. Why not? Is there a prime time hearing to find out? “
Fox ignored his own role
Throughout the night, Fox downplayed the January 6 violence and dismissed revelations about Trump’s conduct. The network also ignored its own role in promoting false claims about pre-riot elections and the posting of private messages by the committee among some of its hosts.
When Cheney read a text exchange between Fox stars Sean Hannity and Kayleigh McEnany since the day after the riot, with Hannity calling for “no more crazy” and “no more stolen election conversations,” Carlson showed live coverage to other networks and it was funny. of these networks. He did not mention any of the texts.
Newsmax, Fox’s right-wing rival, actually showed most of Cheney’s comments, but cut it for analysis by pro-Trump commentators. Banners on the network also promoted Trump’s points of discussion and sometimes Newsmax’s own app.
Back on Fox, when the committee showed an unprecedented video of the Capitol attack, with terrifying images from surveillance cameras and other sources, Carlson’s producers showed sterile live shots of the courtroom, but not the video. One of his banners read, “Today’s AUDITION IS POLITICAL THEATER.”
Concluding the video, Rob Schmitt of Newsmax said: “We saw a much worse summer of 2020, fueled by comments on the other side of the aisle, which burned major cities in this country. Where is the “Well, they don’t have that audition, because they don’t care about your life, where you live.”
When Sean Hannity started his Fox show at 9 p.m., he did the same thing Carlson did: he showed a silent live video of the audience and talked about it all the time. Hannity said the hearing, still ongoing, was the “most boring and boring” Democratic “fundraiser.” He didn’t say a word about what Cheney said. Instead, he focused on security flaws and blamed directly on the feet of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
When the committee swore its testimony, Fox banners called the hearing a “FALSE” and an “ANTI-TRUMP SHOW”.
When wounded police officer Caroline Edwards described how she was thrown into the Capitol with tear gas, Federalist editor-in-chief MZ Hemingway tweeted, “Is the trial of the Soviet-style show still going on?” in the blood of the people “outside the Capitol, Hannity said the hearing was a failure:” They promised too much, they didn’t keep it. ” live television during the second half of the hearing, and no, he never acknowledged his own texts or his own role as Trump’s adviser.
By the time the hearing concluded and analysts from the rest of the networks absorbed the enormity of what was being presented, the pro-Trump media narrative was already in the oven. At Newsmax, Schmitt dismissed it as a “completely one-sided hearing on something that happened a year and a half ago.” On Fox, Laura Ingraham’s 22:00 program banner read “JANUARY 6 THE FLOPS IN PRIMETIME COMMITTEE.”
“Don’t get me wrong …”
Why does right-wing media opposition matter? Because it ensures that the country stays on two very different lines of information.
“Don’t get me wrong, these audiences are crucial, and all Americans should watch them,” The Atlantic contributor Tom Nichols wrote Thursday. “But the alternative reality in which forty percent of us live will never be violated by the real facts.” The senior editor of The Dispatch, David French, estimated that “tens of millions” of people still do not understand “the reality of January 6 largely because the media and the personalities they trust are deliberately lying and / or or hiding the simple truth about Trump and Of course, Fox News said days in advance that it would not show the audience at prime time on its flagship network, but it was still extraordinary to see that the network followed its plan. Mediaite editor-in-chief Aidan McLaughlin did not hold back. . So they can lie about it, “he said. Nation and was available for Fox stations, however, Carlson and Hannity’s shows did not point to these outlets or promote these options. Bret Baier, on the other hand, tweeted a reminder that he was in Fox Business, and critical responses piled up.
Made for TV?
“We’ve all heard that this would be an audience made for television, a presentation designed to capture the audience’s attention in a way that normal Capitol Hill events just don’t do,” Oliver Darcy wrote. “Specifically, we learned that the 1/6 committee was consulting with former ABC News chairman James Goldston to help with the production. The New York Times mocked that Goldston had been hired” to produce the hearings. as if they were a docudrama or a must. -Look miniseries. ‘”
“But in reality, the audience didn’t look like a ‘docudrama’ or an ‘essential miniseries.’ Not even close,” Darcy wrote. “Instead, he used the style of a standard Capitol Hill audience. Yes, there was also a disturbing video package that showed the raw violence of that day. But that video, the only real diversion of the typical audience format, it only included a part of the two-hour affair. “
The audience “was not the shock and fear it should have been,” Deadline senior editor Dominic Patten wrote shortly afterwards. “Despite the praise of the TV talking heads, that was NPR when it should have been UFC.” a citizenry that seems to have adjusted to their respective positions. But judging by the first installment, there will be plenty of powerful material to digest those with an open mind. “A version of this article first appeared in the” Reliable Sources “newsletter. You can register for free here .