Fox & Friends Graphic Shows Merrick Garland Putting Crosshairs Over Parents

Fox News’ graphics department engaged in some questionable special effects by suggestively depicting Attorney General Merrick Garland putting a target on concerned parents.

Fox & Friends opened their show on Thursday with a rundown of Garland’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, along with the other news topics they were going to talk about. The show established the slant of their coverage from the very start as the narrator announced “Republicans grilling Attorney General Merrick Garland over targeting parents.”

During the remark about “targeting parents,” Fox switched to a brief clip of parents protesting at a school board meeting. Instead of airing the video in its unedited form, however, Fox upped the drama by superimposing a green bulls-eye on 3 of the people who were shown.

As the show went on to discuss, Garland faced a lot of questions at the hearing over the Justice Department’s recent memo saying they will take action against threats and harassment directed at school officials. Between the memo and a recent letter from the National School Boards Association (which the organization has apologized for), conservatives have been accusing the government of equating parent protesters to domestic terrorists, and weaponizing the DOJ against them.

Conservative lawmakers honed in on these accusations as they aggressively questioned Garland and demanded his resignation.

As it were, political observers noticed Fox’s inflammatory use of graphics, and it drew a lot of concern about what the consequences might be:

This is twelve kinds of batshit, but the idea that a pretty milquetoast centrist like Merrick Garland is some kind of wild-eyed radical out to destroy families is just off the charts. https://t.co/YUlfdF8J3L

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) October 28, 2021

once again, sarah palin was a warning https://t.co/u61kJvRYdp pic.twitter.com/68gGfsPcA9

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) October 28, 2021

This coverage and the threatening, incendiary and inaccurate framing is all premised on the lie that the FBI potentially investigating credible threats of violence against teachers (who aren’t teaching critical race theory) for teaching critical race theory is “the real threat” https://t.co/dQZQkxgZAm

— Luke Zaleski (@ZaleskiLuke) October 28, 2021

Insane https://t.co/YLqvbFzl8x

— Justin Kanew (@Kanew) October 28, 2021

Watch above, via Fox News.