Narrative Before News At CNSRather than report what happened at the House hearings into the Capitol riot, CNSNews.com chose instead to not be the "news" organization it claims to be, attacking the committee and pushing right-wing conspiracy theories and narratives.By Terry Krepel Like its Media Research Center parent, its "news" division CNSNews.com was under orders (from Brent Bozell? The dark-money powers that be in the conservative movement?) not to report any news that came out of the hearings from the House committee examining the Capitol riot and the events leading up to it, as well as to attack the existence and legitimacy of the committee itself -- which seems counter to CNS' self-proclaimed mission as, you know, a "news" organization. Susan Jones was quick to dismiss findings that hadn't even been revealed in a June 6 article before the first hearing: On Thursday night, the Select House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold its first prime-time televised hearing so Committee Democrats -- and the committee's two Republican members -- can portray "the extent, the expanse, how broad this multi-pronged effort was" to overturn the 2020 presidential election, as Republican Rep. Liz Cheney put it on Sunday. Jones is leaning into the right-wing conspiracy theory that Nancy Pelosi somehow stopped the Capitol police from being fully prepared for the events of that day. Jones was in full biased froth in a June 8 article, and she had one of CNS' most quotable congressmen to help stir that froth: The House committee investigating the events of January 6th -- strategically leaking along the way -- has scheduled its first public hearing in prime time tomorrow night. Jones is leaning into another right-wing narrative, that the "unarmed protester," Ashli Babbitt, is a martyr to the cause despite the fact that she was part of a mob that had broken the window she was climbing to get through, thus making her a reasonable threat to safety (and, one can article, a domestic terrorist). Needless to say, Jones made no effort to fact-check any of Jordan's rantings. Apparently because Jordan wasn't ranty enough, a June 9 article by Craig Bannister depicts CNS' favorite right-wing radio host going completely unhinged: Not since the Salem Witch Trials has the U.S. seen such a one-sided prosecution of Americans who aren’t allowed to defend themselves, Constitutional Scholar Mark Levin said Wednesday, commenting on the Democrats’ Jan. 6 Select Committee investigation and hearings into the 2021 Capitol riots. Like Jones, Bannister doesn't believe in fact-checking people he agrees with, though he works for a "news" organization. Because it was under apparent orders not to cover news despite having the word "news" in its name, CNS devoted no "news"article to the findings revealed at the June 9 prime-time hearing. Indeed, the next day the hearing's findings were nowhere to be found at the top of CNS' front page, which was furiously covering everything but the hearing, as this screenshot of the CNS front page from the early afternoon of June 10 shows. After the hearing, CNS offered only opinions, not facts. Bannister was a servile conduit for more of that in a June 10 article: "This is a kangaroo court; this is a fixed jury," liberal Democrat and Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday, commenting on Democrats’ nationally-televised Jan. 6 Select Committee hearing. Neither Bannister nor Dershowitz mentioned the fact that this is a hearing, not a legal proceeding. This was followed by an article from Micky Wooten, a summer intern who has been given the grand title of "Investigative Journalism Fellow": Jan. 6 rioters causing the death of 5 cops is a "pure lie," Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Thursday, while the Jan. 6 committee held its primetime hearing. For being an "Investigative Journalism Fellow," Wooten is bad at investigative journalism. In fact, the suicide of one of those officers has been ruled a line-of-duty death stemming from the injuries he received that day. Wooten also uncritically regurgitated Carlson's claim that "The D.C. medical examiner performed an autopsy and the autopsy report showed that Officer Brian Sicknick had not suffered any kind of blunt force trauma. He was not beaten to death. He died of a stroke in his office later. " In fact, the medical examiner also ruled that "all that transpired played a role in his condition," meaning his death can be attributed to the insurrection. Melanie Arter brought back Jordan to spread a new conspiracy theory: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said Sunday that the reason why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) didn’t call in the National Guard on Jan. 6 is because of the Democrats’ position on defunding the police. Arter made no effort to fact-check Jordan's claim. Meanwhile, Bannister sneered that "On Friday, President Joe Biden said that the Democrats’ nationally-televised Jan. 6 select committee on Thursday was 'all about' saving America’s democracy but, he didn’t watch it because he had more important things to do." Which, of course, he does because he's the president and his subordinates who can watch those hearings and summarize them for him. CNS then brought in right-wing college professor Jeffrey McCall to dismiss the hearing as "more as a political event than a search for truth or policy deliberation," adding: Roughly 20 million Americans tuned in to the televised primetime Jan. 6 committee presentation. That seems like a lot. But considering the committee was trying to convince the nation that American democracy is at risk, that number is rather modest. Given that almost all major television outlets were shamed into providing live coverage, this audience turnout is unimpressive. Either Americans are just too oblivious to recognize the threat to democracy, or they have moved on to other concerns, of which there are many in today’s America. Because CNS censors non-conservative opinion, no alternative viewpoint to this was offered. As with the first hearing, no CNS news stories have been devoted to what was covered in the five subsequent hearings. In fact, it barely recognized the existence of those hearings at all -- again, despite them being what most non-biased journalists would call news. Susan Jones spent a highly biased June 15 article (presented as "news") whining about the committee's purpose: The carefully scripted, one-sided, anti-Trump work of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is "legislative" in nature, according to one of the Democrats who sits on the committee. By contrast, CNS has praised the work of right-wing prosecutor John Durham and how he too is "digging for evidence of criminality" without dismissing his work as "a politically motivated hunt." Jones went on to push the right-wing narrative that the hearings are biased: Rep. Liz Cheney, one of two anti-Trump Republicans on the committee, likewise tweeted, "The committee has not issued a conclusion regarding potential criminal referrals. We will announce a decision on that at an appropriate time." The hearings were not mentioned again until a June 30 "news" article by Jones attacking another member of the "one-sided" committee: Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, lapped up the applause on "The Late Show" with leftist host Stephen Colbert last night. Jones is clearly one of those "critics," even though she's supposed to be a fair and objective reporter. That same day came another "news" article by Jones which brought the only specific acknowledgment of a committee hearing other than the first one -- which, of course, was focused on trashing the witness of that hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson, former staffer for then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows: President Donald Trump says he personally rejected Cassidy Hutchinson for a job with his post-presidency team in Palm Beach, Florida. After uncritically repeating that attack, Jones then surprisingly and fairly summarized Hutchinson's testimony. So Jones does know how to act like a journalist when it suits her purposes to do so -- though, of course, that was buried at the end with the Trump and Bondi attacks on Hutchinson headlining her piece. Whining from Ron PaulCNS also called on Ron Paul -- whom CNS also let rant against NATO and cheer his son's efforts to obstruct U.S. aid to Ukraine -- to complain about the hearings as well. In a June 13 column, Paul invoked the usual right-wing talking points that the hearings are a distraction from problems facing President Biden and that they will hide evidence that so many of them were secret "government informers": With so much going wrong in areas Americans are most worried about, the Democrats have for some reason decided that the ticket to electoral success in November is to bring back “Insurrection Theater” in the form of new hearings on the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Paul also played the trope that the hearings are a failure because nobody was watching them: As we have seen over the past two years of COVID lies and deceptions, pushing fear and anger can be very effective in politics, and both parties are guilty. But this time it doesn’t seem to be working. Though all major networks except Fox News preempted their prime-time programming to carry the hearings live, Americans did not flock to the production. Again, about 19 million people watched the first hearing over all outlets, which puts the lie to the claim that nobody watched it. Paul concluded by inserting his tired old war against the Federal Reserve: The Democrats are betting that selling fear and anger is a winning ticket for November. While Republicans share a good deal of the blame for the current economic crisis, pretending it’s all the Democrats' fault will likely bring in big returns. And he's accusing Democrats of desperation? |
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