Nicole Hemmer, a historian at Columbia University and the writer of “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics,” stated the Fox News determination to put the Jan. 6 committee listening to on its smaller platforms match into a bigger conservative argument that the riot was “not that big of a deal.”
“To air it on their tiny sister network, they are reinforcing that argument: This isn’t important,” she stated.
Fox News disputed that declare on Tuesday, saying the listening to will likely be accessible to its viewers in a number of methods. The protection on Fox Business will likely be led by Bret Baier, Fox News’s most distinguished host who isn’t overtly partisan, together with Martha MacCallum. That programming can even run on the Fox News web site in addition to on Fox’s streaming service, Fox Nation. Mr. Baier and Ms. MacCallum will seem on Fox News after prime time with an 11 p.m. posthearing particular.
The community additionally pointed to its previous protection, in full, of different periods from Capitol Hill, resembling Supreme Court affirmation hearings. Those have been daytime occasions.
By not carrying the hearings stay in prime time, Fox News is probably sparing itself a clumsy on-screen second. Private communications between a number of Fox anchors and the Trump administration have been unearthed in the course of the Jan. 6 committee investigation. Multiple messages present how the hosts have been deeply involved concerning the rioters and Mr. Trump’s refusal to rebuke them on the day of the assault.
In textual content messages, Mr. Hannity, Ms. Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade, a bunch of the morning present “Fox & Friends,” expressed rising alarm to Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of employees, because the assault performed out. “He is destroying his legacy,” Ms. Ingraham wrote in a single message obtained by the committee.
The different main TV networks plan to cowl the listening to with their highest-profile journalists. The broadcast networks will name of their night information anchors — David Muir, Lester Holt and Norah O’Donnell — to lead two hours of protection. CNN will flip to Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper, together with a small military of reporters and correspondents. Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid will anchor the protection on MSNBC.
