Fox News - Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is Storming the Capitol - Jan. 6th Committee - Day 4 and Day 5
A condensed overview of 8 hours of Fox Primetime coverage for week ending 6/26/22 in addition to a breakdown of Fox News commentary for day 4 and 5 of the Jan. 6th Committee Hearing.
A typical Fox News viewer might think that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog had tried to overthrow the U.S. government in a puppet uprising. They might also think their guns were going to be confiscated by federal officials and that both Pres. Joe Biden and Vice Pres. Kamala Harris were doddering fools who could barely function.
Both Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson dedicated quite a bit of time again the arrest of crew members from “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” This was the second week they chose to focus on it.
On Monday Carlson spent nearly 14 minutes on the story which he reduced to a sarcastic diatribe about how a late night television crew getting caught past business hours in a government office building was the equivalent to the violent carnage at our Capitol building on Jan. 6th 2021.
Fox News primetime reached new lows last week.
Here’s a screenshot of the running order for Tucker Carlson Tonight from Monday June 20, 2022.
Is there a news story in that list? The Chadwick Moore interview was a segment from Fox Nation’s “Tucker Carlson Today” which included Moore discussing how he lost friends when he came out publicly as a conservative.
The Juneteenth segments were dedicated to trashing the holiday and really didn’t give the viewer any historical context. It was simply reduced to another night of crime and bedlam in our major cities.
The anti-affirmative action lawsuit story was Stephen Miller, of the Trump administration, declaring boldly that his new foundation would take on any employment race-based discrimination case pro bono. Although he never said it, Miller implied he was looking for white victims only.
Not only was there little substance to anything discussed on both shows many of it was recycled from the previous week.
Both Carlson and Hannity also spent an inordinate amount of time on a minor spill President Biden took on bike. Carlson even went as far as having Dr. Marc Siegel on a a guest to give his expert opinion on what might have caused the president to stumble.
This clip includes a frequent Fox News contributor, Lara Trump, giving her expert opinion on Biden and his bike.
Due to time and space I won’t go into my usual segments this week since I am dedicating this newsletter to day 4 and 5 of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Hannity did his usual schtick of complaining about riots that happened during the last year of the Trump administration, decrying the climate alarmist religious cult, and exalting the Keystone XL pipeline as the savior of all of our energy problems.
Carlson promoted a couple of conspiracy theories involving food shortages and robot takeovers.
Combined “Hannity” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight” dedicated 2% of their airtime to the January 6th Committee Hearings.
By the Numbers
Mark Shields was a columnist, political campaign strategist, and longtime PBS contributor and who died at the age of 85 last week. PBS NewsHour had an extended segment dedicated to him on Tuesday.
In contrast to Fox News, the NewsHour’s segment on Juneteenth was a positive one that featured historical context about the holiday.
Because of the nature of Friday June 24th and the announcement that the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Roe v Wade decision I decided to dedicate and entire podcast and newsletter on just that one day. That newsletter will include 4 hours of Fox News coverage and a four hour special that aired on PBS.
The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol - Day 4
Duration of hearing without commentary or commercials - 2 hours 23 minutes
Duration of commentary - 16 minutes
Members on Fox Business panel
John Roberts - Fox News
Anita Vogel - Fox News
Bret Baier - Fox News
Martha MacCallum - Fox News
Jonathan Turley - Fox News legal analyst
Andy McCarthy - Fox News legal analyst
For day 4 of the hearings Fox News pulled from their pool of more legitimate news talent.
The most telling difference between PBS and Fox was the omission of any mention of the two most sympathetic figures - Ruby Freeman (Lady Ruby) and her daughter Shaye Moss. Since Fox chose to only have commentary during the recess there was no opportunity to comment on Freeman and Moss because they appeared in the last portion of the hearing.
MacCallum also was the first Fox personality to make a leap that the harassment of election officials by Trump supporters was the equivalent of abortion advocates protesting outside the homes of SCOTUS Justices.
Although there are some similarities between these two situations there are also a few huge glaring differences.
President Joe Biden has not made multiple media appearances encouraging protesters to harass SCOTUS Justices.
SCOTUS Justices have round the clock security at their homes.
A low level election official such as Ruby Freeman and her daughter are basically private citizens. To have the President of the United States accuse them of crimes in public appearances and in the media is unprecedented.
The keep saying we need to hear the other side of the argument, that would ultimately be Trump trying to defend his crazy claims. How would an opposing counsel argue that the many lies Trump is obviously caught in were true.
Trump ran ads with false information
PBS Coverage
Commentary duration - 53 minutes
Pre-show commentary - 11 minutes (Mostly a review of past broadcasts and what to expect for day 4. )
Recess commentary - 15 minutes
Ending commentary - 17 minutes
Panel for PBS NewsHour
Nicole Ellis - PBS NewsHour
Laura Barron-Lopez - PBS NewsHour
Judy Woodruff - PBS NewsHour
Tammy Patrick - Democracy Fund, Former Maricopa County election official
Al Schmidt - Former Philadelphia city commissioner (Witness in Jan. 6th Hearing - Day 2)
PBS put far more focus on the two low level election workers after Pres. Donald J. Trump publicly targeted them. Over half of the commentary after the hearing was spent on the plight of Freeman and her daughter.
Tammy Patrick discussed at length stories of election workers all over the country who have been harassed and terrorized as a result of Trump’s voter fraud lies.
“There are repercussions for the repeated casting of doubt on the legitimacy and the validity of our elections, and it's continuing, unfortunately, even in elections this year, sadly, it's often brought up only when people lose and not if they win the election,” said Patrick
PBS NewsHour host, Judy Woodruff agreed and also expressed concern about how this has affected the entire country.
“What we heard today is not a story in one part of our country. But it's a story that's been repeated, an actual set of threats and disturbing charges made based on absolutely nothing that that have threatened the safety and even the lives of election workers around the country,” said Woodruff
For this chart I compared the commentary that aired during the recess of the hearing since it was the most similar in length between the two networks. For Day 4 of the hearing Fox News did not provide much post-show commentary.
Fox News also made their coverage more difficult for streaming viewers. I had to go to great lengths to get coverage from both Day 4 and Day 5. Here’s an example of what I faced on more than one platform.
It would either say something like this or “This content is not available for streaming.” I got the coverage. I won’t say how I got it but for the last minute surprise hearing scheduled for June 28th I have multiple backup plans in case they don’t make anything available on streaming platforms.
On Fox Nation they simply showed the coverage with no commentary by Fox personalities or analysts.
The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol - Day 5
Duration of hearing without commentary or commercials - 2 hours and 15 minutes
Duration of commentary - 13 minutes
Clips from Fox News were used as evidence
Nov. 29th, 2020 - Trump’s first television interview since he lost the 2020 presidential election. Trump called into a show hosted by Maria Bartiromo.
Date unknown - Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) appears on another show hosted by Maria Bartiromo where he makes claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Members on Fox Business panel
Bret Baier - Fox News
Neil Cavuto - Fox News
Andy McCarthy - Fox News legal analyst
Johnathan Turley - Fox News legal analyst
It was obvious in this fifth installment that Fox wants to do as little as possible with the hearing. They only had four Fox News regulars on. The main thing they discusses was the “lack of opposing voices.” They didn’t want to really touch the evidence or testimony. More than one member of the panel described it as “compelling.”
Again Fox stayed far away from the actual evidence. While PBS mentioned the lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, Trump tried to appoint as Attorney General 12 times, Fox News only mentioned him once. The entire conspiracy revolved around Clark.
Trump was trying to put an unqualified lawyer who would do his bidding in a position to keep him in the presidency.
Fox also barely mentioned the letter Trump tried to get multiple lawyers within the Department of Justice to sign to try to negate the election results in Georgia. PBS mentioned this letter five times.
Legal analyst Andy McCarthy repeated themes he’s made in previous appearances when he emphasized that Trump’s scheme to overthrow an election was implausible and not likely to work. I would tend to agree with McCarthy that Trump’s plan was rather half-baked but he still attempted to nullify the will of the American people and stay in power.
I’m sure McCarthy wouldn’t dismiss a harebrained murder for hire scheme if the would be murderer had taken several steps and involved multiple people in an ill conceived plot. There are plenty of laws on the books for criminals who don’t quite achieve their sinister goals.
Right at 5:00 p.m. Fox cut the broadcast and went straight into their regular programming instructing viewers to catch the streaming version on their website.
Below is a condensed version of the commentary along with the two clips that were used in evidence during the hearing.
PBS Coverage
Commentary duration - 53 minutes
Pre-show commentary - 14 minutes (Mostly a review of past broadcasts and what to expect for day 5. )
Recess commentary - 14 minutes
Ending commentary - none - I’m not sure if it was due to the timing of the broadcast but PBS quickly wrapped up and moved on to their regular scheduled programming. Unlike Fox they showed the entire hearing.
Panel members:
Judy Woodruff - PBS NewsHour
Laura Barron-Lopez - PBS NewsHour
Nicole Ellis - PBS NewsHour
Lisa Desjardins - PBS NewsHour
Andrea Bernstein - Co-host, podcast “Will Be Wild” - a podcast dedicated to Jan. 6th riots
Michael Zeldin - The Institute of Politics at Harvard University - Former Department of Justice under Ronald Reagan
When PBS discussed the hearing they put a lot of emphasis on how many people refused to do the bidding of then President Donald J. Trump.
Michael Zeldin, a republican and former member of the Justice Department himself, was completely appalled at how far things Trump took his attempt to stay in power.
“What struck me God was Donahue, said very bluntly to the President . . . I wanted to tell the President very bluntly, so there'd be no uncertainty. These allegations were unfounded, as a matter of fact, and a matter of law, he wanted there to be no confusion, notwithstanding that the President moved forward with his plan,” said Zeldin.
This chart is a comparison of the words used in the recess portion of the commentary by both PBS and Fox News.
Coming up…
Either tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll have a newsletter/podcast for how both Fox News and PBS responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling to negate the Roe v Wade decision form 1973.
The Select Committee added a last minute hearing for Tuesday June 28th at 1:00 p.m. which I will also be covering. For this week my focus remains on January 6th. I have no idea if they will hold another last minute hearing or what might happen this week but my plan is to cover “Hannity” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
This is awesome. I can’t see Fox News in New Zealand so only get scattered hearsay. Great to have it all in one place.
Great job!