Is Fox News Bored With The Benghazi Select Committee?

On Day Of Second Hearing, Network Devotes Only 16 Minutes To Benghazi Over Nine Hours

Fox News devoted a mere 16 minutes to Benghazi the day of the House Select Committee's second hearing on the attacks, a congressional investigation the network invested years to create. 

Right-wing media, and Fox News in particular, have exhausted more than 1,000 segments over the past two years in a breathless effort to manufacture a political controversy out of the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya that left four American personnel dead. The culmination of this slog of right-wing lies was the formation of the GOP-led House Select Committee on Benghazi, which the network had demanded

As the committee held its second hearing December 10, however, Fox paid it little mind. The network never cut to broadcast the hearing live, as it's done many times before during previous Benghazi hearings. And between 6 am and 3 pm, Fox devoted only 16 minutes and three seconds to any discussion of Benghazi at all.

Many of those 16 minutes discussed Benghazi without acknowledging the ongoing hearing. The network devoted several minutes to discussing details from The Wall Street Journal on a recently released State Department review of security in Benghazi. Fox's mid-day talk show Outnumbered spent much of its airtime suggesting the Benghazi attacks would spell trouble for any Hillary Clinton presidential campaign (there remains no evidence to support this assumption). Outnumbered's Benghazi segment lasted nearly 9 minutes, accounting for more than half the network's Benghazi coverage for the day.

Happening Now, the 11 AM news show broadcast during most of the Select Committee hearing, ignored the topic of Benghazi altogether.

This apparent ennui regarding the Select Committee's endeavors comes on the heels of a November House Intelligence Committee report reaffirming that many of the Benghazi smears peddled by Fox and others were distortions of the truth or outright lies. Previous nonpartisan investigations have done the same.

Nevertheless, Fox News led up to Wednesday's hearing with a smattering of attacks on the Intelligence Committee report, suggesting it was “soft” on the Obama administration.

Methodology: Data based on a Snapstream search for “Benghazi” among Fox News Channel transcripts from 6 AM - 3 pm on December 10, 2014.