Mainstream Media Erupts Over Tucker Carlson

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

(TargetLiberty.org) – A group of news outlets is calling on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to provide them with the same access to the close to 41,000 hours of security surveillance footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection which have been granted to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

On Thursday, attorney Charles Tobin sent a letter representing the 10 media organizations to congressional leadership asking for access to the closed-circuit camera footage which was recorded in the Capitol complex on Jan. 6, 2021, and given to Carlson. In the letter, Tobin writes that it is in the best public interest for them to properly understand what took place on Jan. 6.

Tobin, who also gave Hill access to the letter, pointed out that McCarthy had previously claimed that it was important to allow the American public to reach their own judgment regarding what occurred on that day.

The group of outlets represented by Tobin is Advance Publications, ABC, Axios, CNN, CBS, The E.W. Scripps Company, Gannett, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, and ProPublica.

Since the announcement that Carlson and his team would be exclusively given access to close to 41,000 hours of surveillance footage, McCarthy has received a lot of criticism. Carlson in the past has questioned the importance of the Jan. 6 attack as well as what actually occurred.

In an interview with the New York Times, McCarthy said that he had “promised” to hand over the footage. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has attacked McCarthy’s decision claiming that it could lead to the Capitol being exposed to security risks and that it could provide more insight into the security of the Capitol complex to those who might want to attack the Capitol in the future.

Tobin wrote in the letter that the outlets agreed with McCarthy’s assessment that releasing the footage was in the public’s best interest, but also stated that according to a federal appeals court case selectively excluding certain outlets from accessing this information was not allowed.

Copyright 2023, TargetLiberty.org