Steve Krakauer pushed back on Brian Stelter after the former CNN host appeared to take issue with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) giving thousands of hours of January 6 Capitol surveillance footage, calling the “transparency” a “great” thing.
In a discussion on The Fourth Watch podcast, Karkauer discussed his upcoming book Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People, a work where the media critic deep dives into the media’s coverage of major topics like the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 Capitol riot.
Asked what he thinks about news Carlson received the surveillance footage from McCarthy, Krakauer declared it was “great.”
“I think it’s great. I wish everyone got ahold of them,” he said.
“But that’s not what they’re doing,” Stelter shot back. McCarthy has faced criticism for choosing to only give the footage to Carlson.
“There’s a reason that CNN had lots of exclusives of certain January 6 footage and other news outlets had exclusives of about January 6 activity from the January 6 committee that they were getting fed so this is how it works,” Krakauer said. “It’s not ideal, but I favor more transparency across the board. I think there are absolutely questions about January 6 that are not being addressed. I wish that they were in the January 6 committee.”
The author was especially critical of the media’s handling of January 6, theorizing the event was used as a placeholder for former President Donald Trump.
“I never really understood it other than the fact that Trump was gone so it became like this stand-in for Trump, but I do wonder about that and I actually hope -”
“Its because it’s never happened before in out lives and hopefully it’ll never happen again. It was a violent riot at out seat of power and it should have never happened. That’s why it was taken so seriously,” Stelter said, jumping in.
Krakauer said he supports prosecuting those involved with the riot, but said the focus needs to move from Trump, accusing the press of a “lack of curiosity.”
Stelter and Krakauer did find common ground on the actual January 6 report, Stelter agreeing the “glaring absence” was a lack of focus on actual security concerns in favor of a focus on Trump.
Watch above via The Fourth Watch podcast.
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