Fox News coverage of Day 6 of the Jan. 6th Committee
An overview of how Fox News covered the 6th installment of the Jan. 6th Committee Hearing.
Normally I don’t do podcasts and newsletters two days in a row but when The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol announced a last minute hearing for the afternoon of Tuesday June 28th I knew I was in trouble.
I could have waited until the end of the week and folded this into my usual breakdown of Fox but I knew it would be big. This hearing needed its own newsletter.
The following is a comparison of how Fox News and PBS covered Day 6th of the January 6th Committee Hearing.
The event focused on the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, the former senior aide to then White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Hutchinson had a front row seat to the many clandestine meetings, devious schemes and general chaos leading up the the riots at the Capitol on January 6th.
The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol - Day 6
Duration of hearing without commentary or commercials - 1 hour and 39 minutes
Duration of commentary - 29 minutes
Recess commentary -14 minutes
Post-hearing commentary - 6 minutes
Intro in “The Story” by Martha MacCallum - 9 minutes
Members on Fox Business panel:
John Roberts - Fox News
Martha MacCallum - Fox News
Sandra Smith - Fox News
Bret Baier - Fox News
Jonathan Turley - Fox News legal analyst
Andy McCarthy - Fox News legal analyst
During the recess the Fox News anchors seemed genuinely baffled on how to discuss what they had just seen. Most used words such as dramatic, stunning, riveting and compelling to describe Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony.
All of the Fox anchors and experts conceded that Hutchinson came across as credible and earnest. They seemed to search for a way to spin the story to make it more favorable to former president Donald J. Trump and minimize the horrors of an armed mob determined to lynch the Vice President of the United States.
They all acknowledged at least parts of the following claims presented during the hearing:
Trump demanded that armed rioters be ushered past metal detectors so he could increase the size of his crowd for the cameras.
Trump was only concerned about his own safety during the protest and riots, “They aren’t coming to hurt me.”
That Trump had a tantrum in the White House dining room after he thought Bill Barr had betrayed him.
Trump got into a physical altercation with a secret service member while trying to force the agent to drive him to the Capitol building against the security team’s instruction.
The Fox panel completely ignored the fact that text messages from two Fox primetime anchors - Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity were used as evidence in the day’s hearings.
During the worst of the riot Ingraham sent the following text messages to Meadows:
“Hey Mark, The president needs to tell poplin the Capitol to go home.>
“This is hurting all of us.”
“He is destroying his legacy and playing in into every stereotype . . . we lose all credibility against the BLM/Antifa crowd if things go South.”
At around 3:31 p.m. Sean Hannity also texted Meadows,
“Can he make a statement. I saw the tweet. Ask people to peacefully leave the capital.”
Later that night Hannity sent a tweet with a link warning Meadows that Cabinet members could evoke the 25th amendment which would remove Trump from office. Hannity also called the president and spoke at length about what could happen.
The next day Hannity sent a text to then White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany where he sent a series of requests.
No more stolen election talk.
Yes, impeachment and the 25th amendment are real, and many people will quit.
He was intrigued by the Pardon idea!!! (Hunter)
Resistant but listened to Pence thoughts, to make it right.
Seemed to like attending inauguration talk.
The Fox News anchors repeated the same criticism they’ve used for past hearings - the lack of opposing opinions or cross examination cast doubt on the validity of the entire process.
Nearly everyone on the Fox panel pointed out that they felt the Jan. 6th Committee was being unfair to former President Trump for not focusing on the following line during the speech he gave at The Ellipse right before the riot started,
“Peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Trump did say that line during his speech but as is their habit, the Fox was cherry-picking Trump’s words. During that same rally Trump also said the following:
"Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal."
"That's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved."
"Let them get out. Let the weak ones get out. This is a time for strength....It's all part of the comprehensive assault on our democracy and the American people to finally standing up and saying, 'No.' This crowd is again a testament to it."
"You will have an illegitimate president, that's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen."
Those quotes were just a few of many. Most of the speech was filled with heated language and angry rhetoric.
Fox legal analyst, Andy McCarthy, continued on his strange theory that this entire investigation should have been conducted during the second impeachment of the former president.
The second impeachment of Donald J. Trump started seven days after the January 6th riots and lasted exactly one month.
I’m not sure how the Senate could have collected anywhere near this amount of evidence in such a short time. The impeachment was more symbolic than anything as Democrats knew they didn’t have the votes to successfully convict him anyway.
The following video is a condensed edit of all 29 minutes of commentary plus the two examples of Fox News anchor’s correspondence during the riot with the White House.
PBS Coverage
Commentary duration - 19 minutes
Recess commentary - 14 minutes
Ending commentary - 5 minutes
Panel for PBS NewsHour
Judy Woodruff - PBS NewsHour
Laura Barron-Lopez - PBS NewsHour
Lisa Desjardins - PBS NewsHour
Jamil Jafer - former assoc. general counsel for Pres. George W. Bush currently of George Mason University Law School
Victoria Nourse - former general chief counsel to Vice Pres. Biden currently a Georgetown University law professor.
PBS covered the hearing with a completely different tone. Judy Woodruff started with,
“No doubt the most explosive testimony of these public hearings so far,” said Woodruff.
The panel held absolutely nothing back as they dove into every detail of Hutchinson’s testimony.
Whereas Fox spoke more generally about what was revealed, Victoria Nourse, formally general chief counsel to then Vice President Biden got down to the core issue at hand,
“Cassidy Hutchinson's boss knew that there was going to be violence on January 6, and that her conversation with Rudy Giuliani also suggests that it was going to be wild. It was going to be very bad . . . Mr. Meadows said that to her, and also that they knew it was illegal,” said Nourse.
PBS White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez explored the background of Hutchinson at length,
“She interned for Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana. She interned for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and she is a Republican through and through. Then she went on to work at the White House . . . She testified to the committee today that she was in communication with Mark Meadows daily almost all day long,” said Barron-Lopez.
As usual PBS broke down every element in Tuesday’s hearing. They also invited guests who both had a background as White House counsels.
PBS also did not discuss the correspondence between the Fox News anchors and the White House during and shortly after the riot on Jan. 6th.
The following chart is comparing 20 minutes of Fox News to 19 minutes of PBS coverage. I omitted the last nine minutes of Fox’s coverage since it was really the opening segment of “The Story” hosted by Martha MacCallum.
Coming up…
At some point this week I will focus on the coverage on Friday of the SCOTUS ruling that struck down the landmark Roe v Wade decision. This extra hearing threw off my schedule a bit but I will catch up.