Morning Joe Hammers Fox News ‘Cop Out’ Decision to Not Air Jan. 6 Hearing: ‘Such a Dereliction of Journalistic Duty’

MSNBC’s Morning Joe called out Fox News on Friday for not airing the prime-time hearing held by the House Select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol.

Co-host Jonathan Lemire remarked that the disturbing footage of the attack that was shown during Thursday’s primetime hearing gave “stark reminders of this mob violence.”

“The first time believed that the confederate flag made it through to the capitol. The sickening chants calling for Nancy Pelosi’s head,” said Lemire. “The law enforcement officers who told me afterward that they detained some men who had zip ties and they were fearful they were going to execute a member of Congress on Livestream that night, had they been able to track them down.

“And yet we have one network last night, Fox News, not cover this hearing and, in fact, offered counterprogramming diminishing what we’re seeing last night and did not go to commercials so, therefore, their viewers would not be tempted to change the channel.”

Lemire asked New York Times Pentagon reporter Helene Cooper whether the hearings “can change any minds” about Jan. 6.

“I don’t think so,” said Cooper. “I really don’t.”

“I think that so much of this is baked into the population, the narrative for want of a better word of where people are. That person today listen to what they want to hear,” she continued. “I think the people who we want to reach, who this hearing would attempt to reach, are those very people who are watching Fox News, which is offering counter-programming. And I think what you bring up is really important.”

Cooper went on to call Fox News’ decision not to air the hearing “such a dereliction of journalistic duty.”

“Our jobs as journalists is to present the world as it is, not the world as we wish it might be,” she said. “And for them to not carry this to — to relegate it to where they relegate it to, what, Fox Business, or wherever they put it, is I think that’s disgraceful. I think that’s completely disgraceful.”

Willie Geist then concluded the segment by calling it a “cop out.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.