Much of the media world scrambled to cover the revelation this week that the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is seeking the cooperation of Fox News host Sean Hannity. But his employer wasn’t part of that rush.
But it was quieter on the network on which Hannity has starred for the past 25 years. Over three days, Fox News journalists collectively devoted 88 seconds to the news.
Fox News’s coverage has consisted of brief mentions during news reports hosted by anchors Bret Baier, Dana Perino and Shannon Bream, the last after midnight on Wednesday. It has offered no discussion, no interviews and no statements from Hannity.
In its brief reporting, Fox News repeatedly cited a statement from Hannity’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, arguing that the committee’s request “would raise serious constitutional issues including First Amendment concerns regarding freedom of the press.”
Yet none of the airtime that Fox News has devoted to the matter has explained why the committee wants to talk to Hannity — because he was the author of dozens of text messages that suggested advance knowledge about Trump’s efforts to undermine the election results.
“He can’t mention the election again. Ever,” Hannity wrote to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in late December. “I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told,” he wrote to Meadows, who also got Hannity’s Jan. 5 text: “[I’m] very worried about the next 48 hours.”
Despite his lawyer’s protestations, it’s not clear that Hannity was acting as a journalist in his messages to Trump’s inner circle. The host himself has described himself various ways over the years. “I never claimed to be a journalist,” he told the New York Times in 2016 when asked about his friendship with Trump. A year later, however, he described himself to the Times as “an advocacy journalist, or an opinion journalist.”
Fox News calls Hannity “an opinion host” and doesn’t refer to him as a journalist.
A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment on the network’s coverage of Hannity.
“This is an indisputably newsworthy story” argued Mark Feldstein, a University of Maryland journalism professor. “How can you not cover that?” He criticized Hannity for withholding his behind-the-scenes insight from Fox News viewers as well as Fox News’s decision to give little coverage to the fallout.
Journalists are often resistant to reporting on their own organizations, “but it’s a measure of the quality of a newsroom when it’s done honestly and well,” said Mark Lukasiewicz, the dean of Hofstra University’s School of Communication and a former TV news executive. “Journalism requires that we report important stories even when it involves our bosses, our owners, or our on-air colleagues.”
He applauded MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, for example, for interviewing journalist Ronan Farrow about how NBC delayed his reporting about film producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct; as well as CBS correspondent Jericka Duncan’s on-air report about the alleged threats she received from “60 Minutes” executive producer Jeff Fager when she was investigating sexual harassment allegations against him.
On the flip side, CNN gave little airtime to reports last spring that prime-time host Chris Cuomo had received hard-to-get coronavirus tests early in the pandemic thanks to the help of his brother, then-New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) or that he had offered crisis-management advice to his brother when he was facing sexual harassment allegations. (CNN fired the host last month after state officials revealed the extent to which he was involved in aiding the governor and a claim of sexual harassment against the host emerged.)
And Fox News all but looked the other way when co-founder and chairman Roger Ailes was forced out amid sexual harassment allegations in 2016. Over a five-week period, as Fox News was beset by one bombshell allegation after another, the network devoted just 11 minutes of airtime to the news.
It was similarly restrained in covering a subsequent series of harassment scandals involving Bill O’Reilly, its most popular personality until he and the company abruptly parted ways in 2017.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misrepresented Mark Lukasiewicz’s involvement with Hofstra University. He is currently the dean of the university’s School of Communication.
