The Media Research Center has pushed the narrative that the impeachment process against President Trump is illegitimate because it hasn’t generated the TV ratings of, say, the O.J. Simpson trial — a narrative that was echoed by its “news” division, CNSNews.com. CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey tried to take that further, but only ended up with possibly the dumbest take on this narrative.
“High School Basketball Game Outdraws Senate Impeachment Trial” was the headline on Jeffrey’s Jan. 31 “news” article — this was labeled as Washington “news” and not opinion — and, yes, that’s the take he’s going with:
The varsity basketball game between the Gonzaga Eagles and the Good Counsel Falcons that was played in the Gonzaga gym—about a one-mile walk from the U.S. Capitol–drew a larger crowd on Thursday evening than the Senate impeachment trial did.
That was the case even though the Gonzaga-Good Counsel game drew a modest crowd–as Gonzaga won 79-55.
According to Gonzaga Athletic Director Joe Reyda, there was a crowd of about 200 at the varsity basketball match that started at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.
A count of the people in the Senate galleries, taken between 7:46 p.m. and 7:50 p.m. by this writer, indicated there was a total of approximately 131 people in the galleries at that time.
This included Capitol staff and security personnel as well as reporters and visitors.
Jeffrey was silent about the utterly obvious that that the impeachment trial was broadcast live on TV across the country, meaning that one did not need to travel to Washington and go through however many levels of security to sit in the Senate chamber and watch the trial in person.And he’s certainly not going to mention the fact that the first day of the trial drew 11 million viewers, more than has ever watched a single high school basketball game. Viewership may have declined an the trial went on, but the audience was still in the millions and still towered over the basketball crowd.
By contrast, the basketball game in question was not broadcast on national TV and was almost assuredly not broadcast on TV even in the Washington, D.C., area where these schools (as well as Jeffrey) were located, meaning the gym was the only place one could have seen that game. Further, the security level for spectators was likely much less onerous than at the gym.
Jeffrey deliberately ignored the interest of millions of viewers of the impeachment trial across the U.S. to cling to this incredibly stupid talking point in an attempt to discredit impeachment. Perhaps he should instead focus on making his website’s news coverage less biased.