Tuesday, June 07, 2022

About Those Hearings

Whatever you might happen think about the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, it's important to keep in mind that if truth in advertising laws applied to Congress, the "US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol" would be called "The US House Select Committee to Exploit the Capitol Riot for Partisan Political Purposes."

The Democrats on the committee are there to promote themselves and the Democratic Party, and slam Republicans. The Republicans on the committee are there to promote themselves and the "Never Trump" faction of their own party while slamming the "Trump faction" of their own party.

So when the committee schedules its rollout of its "findings" for  prime time, and when almost every network and cable news channel -- the big exception, as you might guess, is Fox "News" -- agrees to carry those hearings, be very aware of what's going on. Which is:

The mainstream media is making a very large (large enough to be illegal if the Federal Elections Commission recognized it as what it is) in-kind campaign contribution for the committee's members / parties / party factions in the form of free advertising.

The fact that the committee exists is news.

The committee's claims ("findings") are news.

Live, prime-time, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the committee's hearings is just an attempt to boost the committee's narrative to the electoral advantage of the committee's members / parties / party factions with a lengthy prime time infomercial.

Which doesn't mean it's completely valueless, of course. But don't bet the ranch on it being objective, factual, etc. That's not its purpose.

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