US Conservative News Channel Broadcasting Disinformation on Capitol Hill Siege

US media report­ed last month that News­max, described as a con­ser­v­a­tive TV chan­nel, has been broad­cast­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion regard­ing the Jan­u­ary 2021 siege at the US Capi­tol. Accord­ing to the AP report:

July 18. 2022 Wash­ing­ton (AP) — A con­ser­v­a­tive TV chan­nel is pre­sent­ing view­ers with an “alter­nate uni­verse” of how the dead­ly siege at the U. S. Capi­tol unfold­ed on Jan. 6, 2021, a new research report finds. News­max has broad­cast at least 40 false claims or con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about the attack since June, when a House com­mit­tee began tele­vis­ing its evi­dence about the role for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and his allies played in the day’s events, accord­ing to News­Guard, a tech firm that mon­i­tors mis­in­for­ma­tion. “If you’re watch­ing News­max, you may come away with an entire­ly dif­fer­ent feel­ing of what hap­pened at the hear­ings, and what hap­pened on Jan. 6,” News­Guard ana­lyst Jack Brew­ster said of the find­ings. Many of the false­hoods, pre­sent­ed by anchors, reporters and guests who include Repub­li­can mem­bers of Con­gress, have been repeat­ed­ly debunked. News­max did not com­ment on the report. Anchors and guests have claimed that there were only a few hun­dred riot­ers or that they were “unarmed,” despite pho­tos tak­en from that day and fed­er­al charges that show some were armed with guns or used pep­per spray, flag­poles and stun guns as weapons. The Depart­ment of Jus­tice esti­mates at least 2,000 peo­ple entered the U. S. Capi­tol.  For­mer White House aide Cas­sidy Hutchin­son tes­ti­fied last month that Trump had been informed pro­test­ers were armed with weapons.

Read the rest here.

In 2016, the New York Times char­ac­ter­ized News­max as an “influ­en­tial media com­pa­ny that has estab­lished itself as a potent force in con­ser­v­a­tive politics:”

News­max, the mag­a­zine and Web site that Mr. Rud­dy found­ed more than a decade ago, is the right-wing populist’s Time or Newsweek. With a paid cir­cu­la­tion of 230,000, the mag­a­zine reach­es more homes than The Week­ly Stan­dard or Nation­al Review, two of the high­er brow pil­lars of Amer­i­can con­ser­vatism, by offer­ing what Mr. Rud­dy says is “news that Amer­i­cans in the heart­land would like to see.” He and his edi­tors mix cov­er pieces with arti­cles like “The Jesus Ques­tion: Will He Ever Return” and “Heart­land War­rior: Michele Bachmann’s Pas­sion­ate Stand for Amer­i­can Val­ues” along­side items about Ann Coulter’s deci­sion to turn down “Danc­ing With the Stars.” Among news sites that draw large con­ser­v­a­tive audi­ences, only FoxNews.com has more vis­i­tors, accord­ing to Nielsen, and Newsmax’s e‑mail alerts go out dai­ly to 3.2 mil­lion people.

More. recent­ly, the sta­tion has been deemed a “Pro-Trump network.”