Fox News under fire for failing to cover 6 January committee’s expose of star anchors’ texts to Meadows

Fox News is facing heat for not televising the House Select Committee report that made public a series of text messages from its star anchors to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as the 6 January Capitol riot was unfolding.

On Monday, the House Select Committee investigating 6 January Capitol Hill riot released a report detailing Mr Meadows’ communications with people including Donald Trump’s son, Fox News personalities and lawmakers, urging him to get the then-President to stop the riots in real-time.

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Among the Fox News personalities whose messages were read out by Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, were from Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity.

“The president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” Ms Ingraham said in a text.

Mr Hannity, who conducted an interview with Mr Meadows on Monday, reportedly texted him on 6 January, “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol?”

While the anchors had implored people to go home in private messages, both later publicly defended Mr Trump’s actions on that day.

On Monday, when the House committee was reading out the texts, Fox News did not air the revelations, drawing ire from other news publications for not covering the bombshell revelations.

On “CNN Tonight,” anchor Michael Smerconish said, “For the first time, we heard that not only were Republican members of Congress privately testing the chief of staff, seeking help in stopping the siege, but so, too, were some of the president’s favourite mouthpieces who, since January 6, are the least willing to talk about the reality of that day.”

“In fact, I couldn’t help but notice that their network didn’t even carry live the events that I’m now showing you.”

CNN’s Brian Stelter also took to Twitter to point out that it was not just Fox News but other right-wing channels had also chosen to not televise the House Select Committee’s revelations.

“In case you’re wondering if Fox News is the 1/6 committee hearing tonight, the answer is no. Neither is Newsmax. Neither is One America News,” Mr Steltar wrote on Twitter.

Fox News’ silence was also noted by other networks who held the channel responsible for hiding the truth from its viewers.

“Fox viewers are being shielded from the Fox hosts’ urgent texts to Meadows,” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell said on Twitter.

While Mr Hannity hosted Mr Meadows on his show on Monday night, he did not mention the texts exchanged between the two and instead focused on the partisan nature of the committee and its findings.

The Daily Beast noted that, even though Mr Hannity called Mr Meadows to discuss that contempt vote against him, yet “the subject of the bombshell text messages never once came up on Monday night”.

“In their eight-minute friendly chat on Thursday night, though, Hannity did not mention the texts at all. In fact, the majority of the conversation revolved around the ex-Trump aide blasting the House committee’s recommendation that the Department of Justice charge him with criminal contempt of Congress,” the report noted.

While Mr Meadows was cooperating with the House committee’s investigation earlier, he later stopped and has decided to sue them instead.

On Monday, the committee voted to advance referring Mr Meadows to the Department of Justice on criminal contempt of Congress charges.