Media Framing Of The Insurrection Hearings

 

Press Watch's invaluable Dan Froomkin on what he expects from the corporate media's coverage of the January 6 insurrection hearings ...

They have failed miserably to communicate what’s at stake in the midterm elections, and how the choice voters face in November is not simply between two parties, or a referendum on President Biden, or the economy, but is about either succumbing to or resisting a slide into autocracy and patriarchal theocracy.

And now, with the January 6 select congressional committee embarking on an effort to do job the media so miserably failed to do, I fear that our top  newsroom leaders and political reporters will respond defensively and contemptuously, using partisan framing, both-sidesism, bad sports analogies, and theater-criticism analysis to marginalize and mock a sincere and desperately needed exercise in truth-telling.

I fear that the arbiters of our elite, corporate media will embrace Republican talking points about the committee’s motives and conduct. I fear they will engage in so-whatism about new revelations, casting them as old news that changes nothing. I fear they will downplay this, the single most important American story in decades, and the biggest political crime in the country’s history, in favor of other ongoing crises that, while hugely significant, in the greater scheme of things matter so much less. I fear they will get distracted by bad-faith actors flooding the zone with disinformation and diversions.

... and what they should be doing:

What journalists should do is embrace and amplify the committee’s attempt at truth-telling, contextualize them, and help make sure members of the public understand what happened and what they need to do about it.

Republicans have tried to turn Jan. 6 into a political issue – and, of course, the debate is undeniably along partisan lines. But the goal here — the goal journalists should share — is not partisan: It’s the truth.

To support Froomkin's thesis, here's how the eunuchs at PBS -- PBS, for shit's sake -- are framing the hearings as a truth- relative, he-said/ she-said set of dueling soundbites in a promo:

 

Must be scrupulously fair to the fascists!

If this is how "the arbiters of our elite corporate media" are going to frame the most significant, and ongoing assault on our nation, well then democracy has already died in darkness.