The Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham vociferously defended themselves for sending text messages on Jan. 6 that urged Mark Meadows, the last White House chief of staff under Donald J. Trump, to persuade the then-president to take action to stop the Capitol attack.The texts made vivid something that was already not a secret — that key players at the network have acted as informal advisers to Mr. Trump. It is a situation that flouts journalistic ethical norms but does not appear to dissuade Fox viewers. In November, Fox News was the most-watched network not just in cable news but in all of cable television, with an average audience of 1.5 million.Mr. Hannity and Ms. Ingraham said on Tuesday that their texts — which were read aloud in Congress Monday night by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming — did not differ from their public statements that day.The two said that in their view, the pro-Trump siege on Jan. 6 — in which rioters breached and entered the Capitol building, police officers were injured, millions of dollars of damage was done and one rioter was fatally shot — was similar to previous instances of civil unrest, adding that it had been overblown by other news media outlets. Their on-air statements continued their strong defense of Mr. Trump, 11 months after his attempt to subvert the election and his encouragement of the mob that carried out the violence.The text messages also suggested that the hosts believed that Mr. Trump — who had delivered a combative speech on the Ellipse near the White House to thousands of his supporters in the hours before the breach — bore some responsibility for what took place that day.“Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home,” Ms. Ingraham wrote. “This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”Brian Kilmeade, a host of “Fox & Friends,” echoed that concern. “Please, get him on TV,” he wrote in a text to Mr. Meadows. “Destroying everything you have accomplished.”Mr. Hannity texted: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.”Ann Marie Lipinski, a former editor in chief of The Chicago Tribune who runs the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, said that the Fox News hosts had violated journalistic norms in sending advice to a White House official as news was unfolding.“For there to be an ongoing, live violent riot playing out at the Capitol during which anchors are communicating their preferences about what the president should do with the president’s staff is inappropriate in the least, and highly unethical by my lights,” Ms. Lipinski said.“I think that’s part of the bargain that Fox News offers its viewers — ‘We have a different relationship with the government and a different relationship with the Republican Party,’” she added. “I think viewers in large part go there for it.”Understand the U.S. Capitol Riot
On Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.
What Happened: Here’s the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.Timeline of Jan. 6: A presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage in a critical two-hour time period. Here’s how.Key Takeaways: Here are some of the major revelations from The Times’s riot footage analysis.Death Toll: Five people died in the riot. Here’s what we know about them.Decoding the Riot Iconography: What do the symbols, slogans and images on display during the violence really mean?A representative for Fox News declined to comment for this article. The network has not made any public statement about the text messages.On Tuesday, after showing a clip of Ms. Cheney reading aloud the text she had sent to Mr. Meadows, Ms. Ingraham, who hosts “The Ingraham Angle,” accused “the regime media” of “somehow trying to twist this message to try to tar me as a liar, a hypocrite who privately sounded the alarm on Jan. 6, but publicly downplayed it.”On his show, Mr. Hannity set up a confrontation between Geraldo Rivera and Dan Bongino, a right-wing polemicist who joined the channel in 2019.“This was a riot that was unleashed, incited and inspired by the president of the United States, which targeted the heart of American democracy,” Mr. Rivera said on the program.Mr. Hannity told Mr. Rivera to stop talking and reminded his viewers that his guest’s words represented only his opinion. He then shifted to the House inquiry, saying, “The question is, this corrupt committee. The question is, why this riot and not 574 other riots?” After Mr. Rivera asked the host to “remember the frame of mind you were in when you wrote that text on Jan. 6,” Mr. Hannity turned it over to Mr. Bongino.“The back-stabbing of the president you’re engaging in is really disgusting,” Mr. Bongino said, addressing Mr. Rivera.The close relationship of Mr. Trump andBy: Jim Windolf and John Koblin
Title: Fox News Hosts Take the Offensive About Texts to Meadows
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/business/media/fox-news-trump-january-6.html
Published Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2021 01:13:32 +0000
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