This article is part of a series about a legal threat sent to Crikey by Lachlan Murdoch, over an article Crikey published about the January 6 riots in the US. For the series introduction go here, and for the full series go here.
On January 6 2021, as Donald Trump’s MAGA mob stormed the US Capitol, Fox News briefly found itself like the dog that had caught the car.
But not for long. By the time the mob were in their cars heading home, Fox had worked out where it stood: defending the rioters and doubling down on the “stolen election” narrative that its audience had already been persuaded to believe.
From the beginning, the drama of January 6 promised good television for Fox. In both news and opinion its presenters were talking up the “stop the steal” rally. The afternoon before, rising star Katie Pavlich assured viewers: “There are thousands of Trump supporters coming to Washington today. They have a very peaceful track record.” (Yeah, like the Proud Boys, tweeted The Daily Beast’s media reporter Justin Baragona.)
That night Sean Hannity followed on: “Big day tomorrow, big crowds apparently showed up … And this all kicks off in the morning tomorrow.”
Privately Hannity was less relaxed, texting White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that same day (per January 6 committee evidence): “I’m very worried about the next 48 hours.”
Come the morning and Fox’s daytime news-styled programming focused on the Washington events as they evolved from Trump rally, to rowdy protest, to the insurrectional invasion of the Capitol, with a continued shaping of the events as “peaceful”.
Even after the Proud Boys had overrun the outer circle of barriers at the Capitol shortly after 1pm and the protesters fronted up to the building, Pavlich was telling the Fox audience it was all good fun: “All those people you are seeing on your screen, there’s an energy there, and it can be funnelled to places where it can make a difference next time around.”
According to then White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, this was about the time when Trump was demanding to be taken to the protest. When he instead was returned to the White House, he set himself up as an audience of one, leading the riot vicariously through the Fox broadcast.
About an hour later, after the first rioters had broken into the building, Fox’s reporter on the ground, Griff Jenkins, was still on the “peaceful” schtick: “It has been peaceful, everything we have seen so far has been nothing but peaceful, but they are definitely fired up.” About 20 minutes later news presenter Martha MacCallum described the break-in as a “huge victory for these protesters. They have disrupted the system in an enormous way.”
In their texts to Meadows, according to evidence before the January 6 committee, Fox’s commentariat was becoming more concerned. Hannity: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.” Laura Ingraham: “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” Brian Kilmeade: “Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished.”
Finally, with Congress suspended and rioter Ashli Babbitt killed by security, Fox went public with an on-air call to Trump from legal contributor Andrew McCarthy “to tell people to go home and stand down”. After a few desultory tweets calling for the rioters to be “peaceful”, the president finally conceded, tweeting out a video at 4.17pm saying: “You have to go home now.”
As Capitol staff cleaned up and Congress moved on to formalising the election of Joe Biden, Fox too went into clean-up mode. That task fell to Tucker Carlson as that night the baton for the face of the network passed from long-time Trump supporter Hannity, the last of the talk-back radio generation, to Carlson, with his roots in the more conspiracy-minded digital right-wing media.
Initially Hannity (and Ingraham) prevaricated, reframing the protesters’ violent anger over the elections — that Fox had spent two months stoking — with a twist: it was actually antifa. (More than 800 protesters have been charged, none of them antifa.)
That night, Carlson grasped more clearly that the network had to own both the anger and the protests. Although he nodded at the antifa conspiracy, he spoke to his viewers with a meshing of validation and conspiracy: “If people begin to believe that their democracy is fraudulent, if they conclude that voting is a charade, the system is rigged and it is run in secret by a small group of powerful, dishonest people who are acting in their own interests, then God knows what could happen.”
By Fox & Friends the next morning, Pete Hegseth (now Fox & Friends weekend host) elevated the protesters to everyday heroes: “They were there to support the president of the United States and defend our republic and stand up and say: ‘I just want a fair shake.’ … You don’t have to believe that the election was stolen to know that this system has begun to undercut people who love this country. That’s what they were there for.”
The overnight improvisation quickly became network orthodoxy. Fraud sceptics were “restructured” out of the network within a fortnight, including those responsible for the election-night calls that accurately predicted the Biden win. In their place came “election trutherism”, a continually revolving campaign against the results of the 2020 election and against any attempt to call to account those responsible for the January 6 insurrection.
