Priorities: Morning Networks Spend Over 3x More on January 6 Than Kavanaugh Threat

The House Select Committee’s first hearing was scheduled for Thursday, January 6. This could be called Nancy Pelosi’s third attempt to impeach Donald Trump. On Thursday morning, the broadcast networks spent three times as much air time on January 6, than on the assassination plot by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Worse yet, ABC’s Good Morning America (GMA), CBS Mornings, and NBC’s Today They worshipped Congressman Adam Schiff (D–CA), Congresswoman Liz Cheney, and their company. On January 6, they devoted over four times as much to the cause than on rising gas prices.

NBC’s TodayThe hearing was completed in eight minutes 54 seconds. CBS Mornings was close behind with eight minutes and 34 seconds while ABC’s GMA doled out seven minutes and 56 seconds. They lasted together for 25 minutes 24 seconds.

“Chaos at the Capitol. Never-before-seen footage from the January 6 riot,” declared GMA co-host Robin Roberts, boasting it’s a “high-stakes hearing.”

CBS Mornings fill-in co-host Vladimir Duthiers lamented that these hearings will be “hard” to force Americans to tune into given “this fractured media society.” In other words, if only alternative media didn’t exist.

Scott MacFarlane, Congressional correspondent, told viewers “[w]hile so many of the images are burned into our minds from that day, the committee says what we’ve seen and learned so far is just the beginning.”

Adding it’s an “unprecedented investigation” with five teams looking into different aspects of that day, MacFarlane framed opposition as partisan towards Trump, invoking a GOP congressman’s description of the day as a “tourist visit.”

In the 8:00 a.m. Eastern hour, MacFarlane appeared at a touch screen to do his best impression of MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki that included a 3-D view of the Capitol grounds.

NBC’s Now She was equally enthusiastic. In an opening tease, Hoda Kotb, co-host of the show, said it. “All eyes on Capitol Hill. The January 6th committee set to hold its first public hearing on the insurrection, televised live from coast-to-coast in prime time.” Kotb added that they’d examine “what’s at stake…and potential impact it could have on the minds of American voters.”

White House correspondent Peter Alexander insisted “the images from that day are still haunting” for the country, but fretted its “impact has been waning”With “the committee…hoping to reverse that”Show and tell “ongoing threats to American democracy.”

NBC’s Chuck Todd griped that “the people that are concerned” about American “will be watching” while those “that need to be concerned may not.” However, he conceded the committee’s hiring for a former ABC News executive might be a bridge too far.

Kavanaugh was the subject of a complete report from each network. However, they took their time to get there, as each one took well over ten minutes on CBS and NBC. CBS Mornings had the most on Kavanaugh with three minutes and three seconds, followed by NBC’s TodayTwo minutes, 45 seconds 

ABC’s GMA clocked in with two minutes and 25 seconds for a “big three” combined total of eight minutes and 13 seconds.

GMA Michael Strahan, co-host of the show, used harsh language and correctly stated that it was an “assassination plot” “scare.” Longtime ABC correspondent Terry Moran concurred, deeming it “another sign of the threat environment these justices face And of how unhinged the debate around the court has become.”

As CBS and NBC would, Moran cited past protests outside justices’ homes and identified the motive with the alleged suspect supporting abortion and gun control and fearing Kavanaugh wouldn’t advance his ideology. To Moran’s credit, he was the only one to mention how the Biden administration has faced heat “for not enforcing a 1950 law that makes it illegal to pick or protest outside a federal judge’s home.”

Over on CBS, Jan Crawford relayed that the suspect “believed that killing Justice Kavanaugh would give his life a purpose” and tied this to broader threats to the judiciary.

NBC’s Kotb called it a “shocking arrest” and “alarming scare amid amounting concern over the safety of judges across the country.”

Senior Justice correspondent Pete Williams touted Attorney General Garland’s response and providing justices security “after protests showed up at the homes of Kavnaugh and two other justices.” Of course, there was no ideological tie-in given.

Williams referred to the doxxing by the justices, however. “told [investigators] that he got the idea of coming to kill Justice Kavanaugh after finding the justice’s home address on the internet.”

The time difference would have been negligible if this happened to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and the suspect was either a pro-life or gun-rights advocate. One could almost guarantee that CNN or MSNBC would make it a point to hold panels warning Americans in their tens of thousands of numbers of Americans are a threat to national security.

Even worse was the picture when you consider something that directly affects American citizens: Gas prices.

The three mornings shows tallied five minutes and 52 seconds of coverage, but it came almost entirely from NBC’s Today (four minutes and 45 seconds) while ABC’s GMAWith an average of 61 seconds CBS MorningsA pitiful one-second response to a real crisis

For the purpose of this study (and most we conduct at NewsBusters), we stuck to the first two hours of NBC’sTodayTo be in concert during the morning shows of ABC and CBS. These show air between 7:00 am and 9:00 am Eastern. We exclude the third hour and fourth hours. Today).

To ensure transparency The 3rd hour of the TodayThank you to Sam Brock for the four-minute and 41 second report on gas prices.

January 6th was a horrible day. It’s an event that should never happen again. The deeply partisan nature of the probe, the committee’s makeup, the left’s so-called remedies for our elections system, and a media ecosystem’s infatuation and obsession with the committee’s twists and turns make for something most Americans will tune out.