Friday, CNN media correspondent and self-appointed defender of the free press Brian Stelter joined the network's pre-game panel discussion to talk the latest impeachment developments and to applaud Sen. Chuck Schumer for going after Fox News.
Stelter and the panel began by decrying Republican hypocrisy. With the network's obligatory snarky chyron that read, "GOP Blasts Repetition, Which is One of Trump's Political Tools," Stelter condemned Fox, especially Sean Hannity: "Hannity has note cards with the same message. He repeats the same messages every day, that's why he's often described as a propaganda arm for the White House."
He then tried to debunk the idea that nobody actually cares about what's going on in the Senate right now: "What they're saying this is not interesting, no one is watching and of course ratings are above average for all of the channels right now."
Stelter cherry-picked his facts with that assertion as daytime ratings actually showed a decrease in viewers from Tuesday to Wednesday on the three major networks while their soap operas got far better ratings than impeachment.
After legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin argued the repetitions were for people who may only be tuning in for half-hour segments throughout the day, Stelter argued it was also a strategy to convince people who watch Fox that Fox has been concealing the truth from them:
It’s also a strategy in place to get messages through to a Fox audience, to a right-wing audience, that maybe hasn't heard the full story yet. Chuck Schumer, for example, blasting Fox, live on Fox yesterday, that was intentional on Schumer's part. He believes that it is important to get a message through to a segment of the population that maybe hasn't heard all the evidence yet.
That assertion is just laughable. All of the networks, including Fox, have outsourced their programming to C-SPAN throughout the whole impeachment process. On the other side, how would CNN react if a Republican politician accused them of distorting, concealing, and not presenting all the facts for Trump's defense? Because they too repeat the same thing, over and over again.
Here is a transcript for the January 24 show:
CNN
CNN Impeachment Coverage
1/24/2020
10:42 AM ET
BRIAN STELTER: It’s also the tactic from Sean Hannity and his colleagues Fox News in prime time. Hannity has note cards with the same message. he repeats the same messages every day, that's why he's often described as a propaganda arm for the White House. But, it’s a typical strategy of dodge, deny, deflect. What they're saying this is not interesting, no one is watching and of course ratings are above average for all of the channels right now.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: It’s also true that -- the Democrats recognize that most people have jobs, have lives, they're not watching all the hours, so if they want to give people the opportunity if you just tune in for half an hour in the evening, you get the gist of why the president has been impeached. So it’s not just that they want to repeat for the sake of repeating, it is that they recognize there are different audiences.
STELTER: It’s also a strategy in place to get messages through to a Fox audience, to a right wing audience, that maybe hasn't heard the full story yet. Chuck Schumer, for example, blasting Fox, live on Fox yesterday, that was intentional on Schumer's part. He believes that it is important to get a message through to a segment of the population that maybe hasn't heard all the evident yet.
