(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Key members of the infamous J6 Committee have admitted that their hearings held in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections were a publicity stunt, the Federalist reported.
Former Rep. and current CNN commentator Adam Kinzinger, one of the J6 Committee’s most visible members, appeared in a in the Wednesday release of PBS’s J6 documentary, “Democracy on Trial,” remarking that the House committee had entertainment in mind when it conducted the investigation.
“The one thing that we knew was the information that we have is compelling,” said Kinzinger.
For Kinzinger, it was imperative that Americans not only know the facts, but that they be told the facts in a “compelling way.” So he and his colleagues decided to turn the trial into a TV show.
In order to boost the entertainment value of the production, the Committee turned to former ABC News President James Goldston to be the “producer” of the hearings, which took place in the months prior to the 2022 midterms.
“I got a call pretty much out of the blue from the January 6th committee,” Goldston told PBS. “They wanted a storyteller.”
In a moment of striking clarity, he also suggested that, while the Committee members were “brilliant lawyers,” they were unfit to engage in “storytelling for a mass audience.” That’s where he came in.
Robert Draper of New York Times Magazine told PBS that bringing in Goldston was a big hit, and added substantially to the rhetorical appeal of the literal show trials.
“To bring in a guy like this who would think outside the box really did prove to be fruitful,” Draper said, noting that the ABC producer helped the Committee package the commentary in a way that would be properly entertaining to the American people.
“It was Golston who really began to envision this as in a way a kind of miniseries that there would be sort of nine episodes and that these episodes would tackle particular themes.”
