Fox News doesn’t want its viewers to watch history in the making with their own eyes and ears.
Fox News complaints about the “boring” Trump impeachment trial are another sign the network doesn’t think the proceedings are going well for Dear Leader.
Yesterday, I wrote that surprisingly tough questions for Kellyanne Conway signaled Trump TV concerns about how the impeachment trial is going for their guy. Ditto for the repeated complaints I also noted that the procedure is boring. Do you think Fox would be complaining if the network thought the trial made Trump look good?
This morning, Fox & Friends seemed to steal our tagline when cohost Pete Hegseth said, “We watched so that you don’t have to watch the entire thing.”
It started with Steve Doocy cracking up the Curvy Couch Crew with his knee slapper about the heavy schedule: “Luckily, it’s so exciting, it’s going to keep ‘em awake.” He added, “We’re showing you the good stuff – it was unbelievably boring!”
“Serious journalist not in the tank for anyone” Ainsley Earhardt agreed. “Basically, Republicans approved the rules, Democrats over and over and over, 'we want witnesses, we want witnesses,'” was how she described yesterday’s proceedings. She never mentioned that most Americans, including 71% of Republicans want witnesses, not the sham trial Mitch McConnell is trying to ram through.
After his “we watch so you don’t have to” bit, Hegseth said, “If you watched it, you felt like you were watching opening arguments. Those haven’t even started yet!”
“Right” the other cohosts said in unison.
Hegseth sneered, “This was just the debate over the rules and I was sitting back and watching last night, thinking this is a circus. And then I thought - and then my [latest] wife, Jen, corrected me and said at least circuses are entertaining.”
“Right!” Doocy agreed.
“This is just a show, you know how it’s gonna end: 53-47 on every vote,” Hegseth continued. Never mind that Earhardt had just said that some Republicans might cross over and vote with Democrats on witnesses. “Now you have three days to endure of the House managers, the Democrats, making their case,” he said.
“Serious journalist” Earhardt said nothing about the importance of allowing viewers to make up their minds for themselves or the ability to watch proceedings of historical importance. No, she chimed in, “I don’t think the majority of people watched. I think they just turned to us to be able to summarize it for them, because it was so long!”
“I think they turned it on and they thought, oh, wait, didn’t I hear this a couple of weeks ago?” Doocy said. “Don’t I know how this is gonna end?”
Hegseth and Earhardt were quite entertained by that. “Yes!” Hegseth exclaimed. Earhardt giggled.
Media Matters provides several other examples of Fox talking heads complaining about the boring impeachment trial.
But I think this Fox & Friends discussion points to something worse than a deliberate effort to turn viewers away from unflattering-to-Trump proceedings. Fox wants viewers to be informed about these historical events only by what they see through the Fox prism.
Published with permission of NewsHounds
Editor's Note (Karoli): Fox News stepped up the spin on Wednesday by broadcasting video with no audio, just their biased commentary.
Fox News has the optics of covering the #ImpeachmentTrial without actually covering it. They've been showing screen-in-screen video of the proceedings without audio. Instead, hosts are providing Trumpian spin. It's propaganda giving the illusion of journalism. Remarkable. pic.twitter.com/NKbN2Sic1o
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 23, 2020
