Beware liberal-media tastemakers when it comes to making "Best of Year" lists, because they often confuse quality with their political preferences. Look no further than James Poniewozik, the New York Times chief television critic that used to work for the leftist site Salon.
We probably shouldn't be surprised that the Pelosi-Picked Panel and its many live-coverage enablers somehow made a "Best TV Show."
The Jan. 6 Committee Hearings (various networks)
It’s no insult to call this investigation into the attack on democracy a TV show; that was its power and its accomplishment. Deploying deft editing, story structure, graphics, suspense, social-media virality and, yes, a touch of showmanship, the hearings made a public service into the show of the summer and the most important TV of the year.
Alright let's take a look at what the New York Times thinks are the "Best TV Shows of 2022"....
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) December 9, 2022
"Deploying deft editing, story structure, graphics, suspense, social-media virality and, yes, a touch of showmanship..." ... the January 6 Committee Hearings.https://t.co/DZGQoimiyS pic.twitter.com/XIXGXKtSFH
Who needs an actual Minority that can object to a one-sided partisan narrative? These "hearings" were an edited television show directed by a former ABC News executive named James Goldston. Live witnesses were secondary to pre-selected video clips to drive home the Democrat message about the Republicans.
This makes an interesting clash with Times movie critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, who after a “best” list of mostly obscure films about circus donkeys and human abortions, made a list of honorable mentions, under the heading “And make sure to watch.” It included a documentary called Riotsville USA.
You see, "civil disorders” were a good thing when the Left was doing them in the 1960s, and the military preparing for riots was apparently a sinister thing. Gee, that turns the January 6 calculus upside down, doesn’t it?
See the "NYT Critics Pick" rave review by Glenn Kenny:
The mid-1960s saw a conspicuous rise in civil unrest in the United States. The war in Vietnam, substandard living conditions for people of color, and a larger shift in consciousness all contributed to people wielding violence as a tool of protest. The new documentary Riotsville, USA, shows the federal government’s response to this tactic as both sinister and, in some sense, laughable…
A federal government advisory commission on civil disorder actually concluded that the rioters had something to riot about. They recommended sweeping policies to redress inequities. The activist H. Rap Brown, who was in jail when the report came out, said the people on the commission ought to be in a cell too, as “they’re saying what I’ve been saying.” The only recommendation lawmakers acted on, however, was to increase police budgets.
Manohla Dargis called it a "must-see," it was "mesmerizing"!...which is used in the propaganda film's promotional materials.
Another must-see is Sierra Pettengill’s Riotsville, USA, a mesmerizing documentary essay that tracks American anti-Black racism through a wealth of disturbing, at times super-freaky 1960s archival footage. The title refers to several strange Potemkin-like towns that the United States military constructed in the wake of the civil unrest of the era. There, against rows of cardboard storefronts with generic names, military personnel — some in uniform, others in civilian clothing — engaged in pantomimes of violence, exercises that were observed by local politicians who took lessons from these war games back to the home front. As the Johnson administration publicly grappled with the fires at home, including with the Kerner Commission that investigated the roots of the unrest, it was also stoking future conflagrations.
Take a look at the Dargis promo:
