Here's an excerpt from a Vox piece about the upcoming congressional hearings on the January 6 insurrection. It's typical of dozens of others I've read:
The committee is going to great lengths to make the primetime presentation compelling , including bringing in former ABC News president James Goldston as a consultant.
They will gather Thursday in the Cannon Caucus Room, an ornately decorated space that is rarely used for hearings. Using live witnesses as well as video, images and other documents, it will represent an opening argument by the January 6 Committee, as it shares the fruits of over 1,000 depositions and interviews it has conducted and 140,000 documents that it has gathered since it was established by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last summer.
The impact of these hearings is reduced because Democrats are all but bragging that they're basically a scripted show, not real hearings. Compare this to the current Republican campaign to shame the media for not giving more attention to the guy who approached Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house this morning and later called police to turn himself in for thinking about killing Kavanaugh. There's never even a hint of acknowledgment that Republicans are following each other's lead to put on a show. They play it straight, as if their outrage over media priorities were entirely genuine.
Democrats could really learn a lesson from this.
The thing is most people aren't us - political junkies hanging on every word coming out of the 1/6 committee. Those who do tune in will find the information new and I hope very compelling.
Exacly. Those that read Vox or any of the "dozens of others" are already fixed in one side. The question is whether it can convince people that don't read these is not obvious. Considering that live reporting of an invasion of the Capitol didn't make much difference. it is difficult to be optimist.
Most of the lame-os at Vox were, are, & will be on the side of the Insurrectionists.
It's frankly frightening how thoroughly the lamestream media have been indoctrinated to the Orbanite future of the United States of America. In fact, our own dear leader on this blog, Kevin of Antiwokia, is among those jackwagons who will be hoisting me on to the train to the camps.
I can't imagine anything the committee could reveal that would change public opinion one iota. It's a necessary exercise for them to undertake, but hopes it might have a political impact are misplaced.
Republicans have the advantage that they’re managed by a professional media organization. (I’m talking about Fox News of course)
Their having an advantage of a propaganda organ is not in fact an omniexcuse to engage in own-goals and generalised communication incomptence outside of your own pre-sold audience.
Continuously trotting out the excuse is like the habitually losing team pre-game trotting out their excuses as why they will lose the next match. However true or not said excuses are, they set you on the losing the game mentality.
The Republicans have a certain attitudinal advantage over you lot, that is clear, they unabashedly play with winning as goal rather than intellectual goals.
The January 6th is interesting on how team Trump lost control of their con. The mick stuff???? Nobody cares a false alarm.
Sure, Democrats have a problem with messaging, but Republicans repeating lies over and over again has made it so that they believe their own myths. They don't need messaging discipline because everyone in the party knows that whatever the Dems are saying is the opposite of what they will say, irregardless of how ridiculous. Their base just laps up ridiculous. It's become a cult.
I wonder if Jack del Rio is chastened enough to not reenact the January 6, 2011, dustup by attacking the committee hearing tonite.
Virginia pulled the bill that would have handed over millions to Dan Snyder for a new stadium for the Washington, DC NFL franchise. A couple of previously supportive Democratic state senators pulled their support of the bill as a result of Del Rio's comments. The bill was formally killed in this mornings legislative session down in Richmond.
Yeah....
How to get people to watch is their main problem. Then, how to convince Republicans that they shouldn't trash the constitution.
PBS's Frontline is "a show." So is Nova. All the news programs.
What's a "hearing"? Republican congressbeings jumping up and down and shouting nonsense and debuked conspiracy theories. Asking inane, loaded questions. In short, disrupting any fact-finding or basis in reality.
Give me "a show" any day. Something with narrative, put together with the thought of informing. Accurate, documented, and witnessed. With luck, most Americans will agree.
Trey Gowdy & HAMBISCUITS! would argue that Congressional hearings, to succeed, require a very heavy amount of theatricality, bordering on the histrionic.
Well, let's hope the Democrats provide it this time!
So, Democrats' shouldn't promote things like major hearings into Republican law-breaking. Also, Democrats have a "hack-gap," to use your term, where they fail to promote things.
Kevin, on this, is no better than his alleged rivals in the fauxgressive WOKE left: Democrat need to do this, he says,... BUT NOT LIKE THAT.
Sad day when Kevin Drum starts sounding like the Republican noise machine.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/09/january6-committee-hearings-media-why-they-matter/
Democrats are always bragging ahead of time about how crafty they are. It's moronic, as if they had no idea of the value of surprise, the appearance of spontaneity, and the value of exceeding expectations. I was bald for a whole year tearing my hair out about John Kerry's campaign, which couldn't stop bragging about how much they were going to emphasize his military record, making the whole thing feel inauthentic. I always blamed it on the consultant culture of Democratic campaigns, which wants to make sure everyone understands who's behind the clever strategy.
John Forbes Surfboard didn't choreograph his military bona fides half as obviously as WALNUTS! Mc Cain, nor did he respond to the Swiftboat Veterans for Truthiness one percent as aggressively as the One-eyed Man Dan Crenshaw went after Pete Davidson.
Try again, Lester Maddox Democrat.
Does the GOP really want the media to pay more attention to the fact that a nut case can legally buy semi automatic weapons and go after politicians and judges they disagree with? I mean slaughtering elementary school kids is one thing, but threatening a conservative judge? That's a real crime.
Good points. The GQP only care if it's a liberal with a gun. Dead innocents is just the "price of freedom." Plus, they have to make two (2) attempted shootings by libs equal to, or WORSE, than the literally hundreds of shootings by avowedly right wing nuts with trumpist or white supremacist goals.
Both sides! Now that's "fair & balanced!" With a pretty big thumb on that scale.
*quietly* D... doesn't it seem like the attempted assassination of a Supreme Court Justice should be front-page news? It seems undeniable it would be if the target were a liberal justice, right? I dunno, I try just to call balls and strikes on objective questions, and it seems like they have a point here.
It was on the front page, at least the electronic version, of both the Guardian and "even the liberal New York Times". I don't know what more they want given that absolutely nothing happened.
It was a red banner on The Washington Post website. Also received a "breaking news" e-mail from CNN.
This nontroversy didn't even progress a tenth as far as the assassination of Richard Nixon.
The guy had a gun in Kavanaugh's neighborhood, then called the cops on himself. In contrast, ex-Maryland Terrapin Lonny Baxter came closer to killing the president, but that was even less of a story than the assassination plot against Barf.
The guy called 911 and claimed the voices in his head were telling him to kill Justice Cavanaugh and kill himself.
OTOH Lonny Baxter was a sad sack minor criminal who had the bad luck to fire his weapon too close to the White House.
It's a dog and pony show. Let's see what tricks they have in store.
No, it's perfectly fine to put on a show. There's no need for Democrats to pretend to be impartial about an attempted coup.
I agree with the first comment in the thread. Most people have no clue what Dems are saying about the hearings. They probably don't even know the hearings are going on. I also don't think most people are literal enough to be upset that the hearings aren't hearings.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't see any Democrats bragging in the linked article.
What I did read is typical press/media coverage of things Democrats do. Reporting on the production & media management efforts. They almost never do this to things Republicans do. See, e.g., CRT, immigration caravans, etc.
I think if you want to bring eyeballs to a show, you need to advertise.
Of course the biggest problem is that the show will not make one iota of difference. The Republican party wanted the government overthrown and still does. Not sure what they are trying to prove with the show. We all know the gist of what happened and why, and the only question is who supports it and who doesn't. The hearings will not change one vote among those who applauded and still applaud the attack on January 6th.
I disagree a bit. Agree that this hearing won't suddenly flip GOP'ers to support Democrats but I doubt that's the intention of the hearing. Instead the hope is to engage and enrage folks who were on the sidelines about this, folks who are like "Yeah it happened but so what, it doesn't matter if I vote or not." If the Democrats can get enough of the unengaged voters off the sidelines and scared enough to vote this November, they can maybe keep control of the government.
From my personal experience and what I read, disengaged voters hardly follow the news, or not at all, and they are very distrustful of institutions in general. They think they will be screwed no matter who is in power, so they don't vote. The only way to reach them is to appeal to them on pocketbook issues, and even then it is hard to get them to vote because they know that most of the time promises aren't delivered.
That's Americans for you. We get one whiff of showmanship and we tune right out.
I haven't looked at the numbers recently, but I think a lot of people still get their news from local and national network TV. The fraction is probably higher for those who are not strongly committed politically, that is swing voters. The hearings will be covered by the broadcast networks as well as practically all cable "news". There would seem to be a potential to reach persuadable people who have not been paying much attention as other things have grabbed headlines.
I agree wirg most of the comments and disagree with Kevin. I show is what is needed to have any impact on the less politically engaged majority. The committee needs to deliver something that breaks through but, if they don't promise something big anjd exciting, they won't get enough people watching to make any difference.
You don't think Sam Ervin knew what people testifying were going to say when asked questions?
He sure did -- they collected testimony privately before people testified at the public hearings.o
What's clear is that the D's are going to try to walk people through the actual conspiracy to overturn the election. Trying to portray it coherently is actually the only saner thing to do, right?
Well I gotta say KD, you were wrong. Democrats were under-selling what they have.
Sorry Kevin, but you're wrong. You expect a "hearing" where the key players tell the truth? Well, most of the key players aren't talking. They're hiding. And they are lying pieces of shit, just like Trump. I don't really know what else they could do, unless Melania came in and said, "You're right. It's all a lie and my husband knows that. And I really do care."
I haven't found a single actual reference that says the committee is the one who said they hired someone to make a slick production.
Even the interview with Colbert, the whole 'they hired someone' question was batted away with a dull of course we hired a producer and editors, that's how you create videos. No, it's not something special, just that they have to bring all the clips together.
Honestly, everyone mentioning the 'slick production' really oversold it, because there wasn't a slick production, just solid professional work.
https://mobile.twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1535082372030414861