Two Republican lawmakers are standing up for conservative television news networks that they claim are being targeted for “cancel culture.”
GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rodney Davis of Illinois sent a letter on Tuesday to House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren urging her to make sure the House continues to carry Fox News, One America News Network, and Newsmax. Davis is the ranking member on Lofgren’s committee, while Jordan has been a vocal opponent of “cancel culture.”
Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney sent letters on Feb. 22 to television content providers, such as AT&T, Roku, Comcast, and Verizon, asking them why they carried the three “purported” news outlets that they say function as “misinformation rumor mills and conspiracy theory hotbeds that produce content that leads to real harm.” They asked if the providers plan “to continue carrying Fox News, Newsmax and OANN” and, if so, why.
“The House of Representatives can fight back against cancel culture by ensuring that Members and staff have access to these targeted news networks on the House’s internal television system,” Jordan and Davis wrote in the letter. “We therefore ask you, as chair of the committee responsible for internal House operations, to reject cancel culture and ensure that the House’s television system carries Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax.”
HOUSE DEMOCRATS PUSH TV CARRIERS TO STOP HOSTING FOX, OAN, AND NEWSMAX, CITING ‘MISINFORMATION’
Jordan and Davis characterized the California Democrats’ letter as an “attempt to cancel” the networks “under the guise of addressing alleged ‘misinformation,’” while the Democrats claimed that the networks have “aired misinformation about the November 2020 elections.”
OANN and Newsmax aired theories alleging that former President Donald Trump was the real winner of the 2020 presidential election. The source of one of the theories, Dominion Voting Systems, threatened to sue the outlets for defamation, while Smartmatic, another entity accused of wrongdoing regarding the election, sued Fox News for more than $2 billion. Fox has moved to dismiss the lawsuit.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Jordan and Davis invoked the First Amendment in their appeal to Lofgren, and they brought up reporting on the allegations of Russian collusion.
They said Eshoo and McNerney’s effort is “not just a radical attack on the First Amendment’s freedom of the press,” but it also “blatantly ignores how left-wing news outlets regularly pushed false narratives about President Trump and the Trump Administration, including debunked allegations of Russia collusion.”
