The group of lawmakers investigating the Capitol riots on January 6 would like as many Americans as possible to know why and how the attack took place. So they made the rare decision to hold the first public hearing on the subject in prime time, when many people will be sitting in front of their TVs.
Fox News, the country’s leading cable news channel, has other plans.
When the hearing begins Thursday at 8:00 p.m., NBC will go into special report mode. CBS will broadcast a special called “Capitol Assault Hearings”. According to ABC, the usual prime-time squad will be transferred to “Attack on the Capitol: The Investigation – ABC Special News”. MSNBC and CNN will have wall-to-wall coverage throughout the night.
But Fox News will not hold the hearing. Instead, the network will stick to its usual prime-time lineup of conservative hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram.
The network said Monday that their primetime hosts would cover the event “as the news demands”. Fox Business, a sister network with far fewer viewers, will cover the live hearing.
Republicans in Washington and conservative commentators have attacked the committee’s hearings – the first of at least six the group is expected to hold on Thursday – as a guerrilla political theater produced by Democrats to boost their chances in the by-elections. If Fox had decided to run it continuously on its cable tent platform, the news network would have been in the awkward position of showing its audience an event that its own personalities and guests have repeatedly denigrated as a farce.
Nicole Homer, a Columbia University historian and author of “Messengers on the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics,” said Fox News’s decision fits into a broader conservative argument that the uprising “is not such a big deal.”
“In order to broadcast it in their small sister network, they reinforce this argument – it doesn’t matter,” she said.
Given the highly polarized view that Americans have taken of the work of the elected committee, it is far from clear that Fox viewers would be involved at all. Fox viewers have punished the network in the past for out-of-bounds coverage. After Fox News became the first network in 2020 to call Arizona for President Biden, effectively declaring him the winner and refusing to promote the boldest allegations of voter fraud, her ratings plummeted. Newsmax, a conservative cable news channel that was more likely to broadcast dubious election fraud stories, saw a temporary rise in its ratings.
It wasn’t until Mr. Biden was discovered and Fox News presenters like Mr. Carlson began broadcasting events like Jan. 6 as a guerrilla smokescreen that the network’s ratings recovered.
“The base is not pushing to adjust because they agree that the January 6 hearings are just a show on the political stage and that January 6 is an exaggeration,” Ms Homer said.
The other networks plan to cover the hearing with their top journalists. Broadcasting networks will call their evening news anchors – David Muir, Lester Holt and Nora O’Donnell – to cover the two-hour coverage.
Fox’s decision to offer less coverage than other news networks will affect more than just cable TV viewers. The Fox broadcast network, which reaches many more homes, is not aimed at showing the hearing, according to Fox News Media, the parent company. The cover will “be offered to” branches across the country, the company said, but not on a mandate basis, as is often the case with major events such as a presidential address.
The hosts of Fox News have not looked at the commission for a long time. Mr Carlson called the committee “grotesque” in his program Monday night, and Mr Haniti called the group of five Democrats and two Republicans “fake” in his 21:00 show.
“I don’t think you will hear the real story anywhere on January 6 except here,” Mr Haniti said Monday night.
Brett Bayer and Martha McCallum will host Fox News, but will do so on Fox Business. Last month, Fox News had an average of 1.5 million viewers at any time of the day; Fox Business had an average of 136,000 viewers. The Fox Business show will also run on its website, as well as on the Fox Nation streaming service.
The network said Mr Bayer and Ms McCallum would eventually appear on Fox News’ cable network, but outside of prime time. They will appear at 11 pm, ahead of an episode of the late-night online show, “Gutfeld!”, For a two-hour special.
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