It was bound to be a nauseating day for anyone who turned on CNN or MSNBC Thursday during their voluminous coverage for the first anniversary of the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and, according to a NewsBusters tallying of their live programming (20 hours on CNN and 19 hours on MSNBC), they didn’t disappoint.
All told, the two far-left channels spent 1,653 minutes marking the occasion and demonizing all 75 million-plus Trump voters.
With the formal total clocking in at 1,653 minutes and two seconds (and translating to 27 hours, 33 minutes, and two seconds), MSNBC’s 838 minutes and 33 seconds surprisingly beat out the perpetually degrading and perhaps most insufferable CNN, which had 814 minutes and 29 seconds.
That monstrosity of a number came on top of the fact that, as NewsBusters wrote, the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC spent almost 90 minutes on their two-hour morning newscasts and just over 38 minutes on their 30-minute evening newscasts.
CNN centered their coverage around a hatred of not just those charged in the riot, but conservatives and Republicans writ large. Their coverage centered around a 92-minute-long special entitled Live From the Capitol: January 6th, One Year Later, which was milked as a made-for-TV production (as is often the case under boss Jeff Zucker) from Statuary Hall.
During the special, AC360 host Anderson Cooper claimed Fox News and the rest of conservative media “relish the idea of sparking another civil war” and preventing the country from properly coming together.
Hours earlier, retired Capitol Police officer Michael Fanone — who’s cashing in on his service and anti-Trump rhetoric by becoming a CNN law enforcement analyst, proclaimed on New Day that the right’s “still engaging in the same violent rhetoric” from a year ago, adding that Republicans are “insurrectionist” “jackasses.”
Don Lemon closed out the coverage, featuring guests such as Stuart Stevens, who said the GOP and its tens of millions are “an autocratic force” and demanded former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama barnstorm the country to lambaste those who vote Republican.
And those were just a few examples.
On MSNBC, it wasn’t any better. On MTP Daily, host Chuck Todd falsely claimed Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election “was more accepted” in America than Joe Biden’s 2020 win. That, of course, would ignore the fact that, within six months afterward, 11 states had seceded from the Union.
Longtime liberal presidential historian Douglas Brinkley was on Craig Melvin Reports two hours earlier and insisted January 6 was akin to the Holocaust in that both had video evidence of crimes being committed.
To further show their disconnect from reality, seven of CNN’s 12 shows had full segments or news briefs that talked about something other than January 6, but four of them were in shows that aired before noon Eastern.
OutFront host Erin Burnett was the last CNN host/show to have spent time on something other than January 6 as her 7:00 p.m. Eastern show had a three-minute-and-25-second piece on tennis star Novak Djokovic and then a 39-second news brief on the Chicago Teachers Union choosing to abandon their students.
MSNBC wasn’t any better as only five out of 16 shows featured something other than January 6 coverage.
In the 9:00 p.m. Eastern hour, Rachel Maddow used 68 seconds from her show’s final few minutes to update viewers on the fire at a Tennessee Planned Parenthood facility, which authorities now say is being investigated as arson.
Prior to that, the previous show to do something different was Craig Melvin in the 11:00 a.m. Eastern hour.
Whenever CNN or MSNBC lecture Fox News or alternative forms of media that their priorities are misplaced, be sure to show them tallies like this.
