… on OAN:
When the hearing began at 9:30 a.m., OAN ran a segment about crime in Chicago instead.The channel showed about 20 seconds of the hearing at 10:05 a.m., but the anchor talked over the testimony and didn’t explain why US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell looked so emotional.
Then the anchor, apparently reading an outdated script in the teleprompter, said that Cheney was “expected to speak in her opening statements,” fifteen minutes after Cheney had spoken. OAN did not show what Cheney said. Instead, the channel re-aired an old report about tension between Cheney and other Republican lawmakers.
That mistake summed up OAN’s approach to the hearing overall: Pretending that it wasn’t happening the way it was.The 12 p.m. hour began with an anchor reading another outdated script about Trump: “The 45th president says that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is spending too much time and money on the highly partisan January 6 commission.”
OAN didn’t show any clips of the officers’ gripping accounts — or of DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone repeatedly calling the attackers “terrorists.”
But the producers made sure to break into a taped business report about Tesla’s record profits at 12:55 in order to air another GOP press conference.”Lawmakers are speaking regarding the treatment of those that have been arrested as of their actions after January 6,” the anchor said, mangling her words.A
t the press conference, far-right lawmakers bashed the Department of Justice and defended riot suspects they depicted as “political prisoners.” The on-screen banner referenced “JAN. 6 PROTESTERS” rather than accused criminals.The press conference was interrupted by protesters who blew whistles and held up signs. One America News moved onto a segment about voter fraud allegations in Georgia. Other stories in the anti-Democrat news wheel on Tuesday were titled “Delaware Democrats facing accusations of racism, violence” and “N.J. congressional candidate targets Pelosi and Andy Kim.”
One America News president Charles Herring did not respond to requests for comment about his channel’s coverage.
It seems like an obscure. channel. It’s gone from my cable line-up after having been on it for years. (We still have Newsmax, which is almost as bad.) But apparently, a whole lot of Trump fans are tuning in:
OAN is not nationally rated by Nielsen, which is often a sign that a channel is relatively obscure to news consumers. However, data from set-top-boxes and other sources showed a big uptick in viewership after Trump lost the election last November.
I wonder if they’ll show this testimony:
Liz Cheney told “Good Morning America” Tuesday that Jordan may be called to testify.
He’s somebody who was involved in a number of meetings in the lead-up to what happened on 6 January, involved in planning for 6 January, certainly for the objections that day, as he said publicly, so he may well be a material witness.
He will lie, of course. Or put on some kind of silly show saying that his discussions with Donald Trump are “privileged”, which they are not. But they must call him anyway. He’s not nearly as slick as he thinks he is.