The hearings put on by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol have been produced and presented less like congressional hearings and more like an episodic HBO docuseries, with committee members — mostly Republican Rep. Liz Cheney — as the narrators, with witness testimony as the expert talking heads, with footage of depositions and speeches and the January 6 riot itself as the documentary actualities.

The hearings have been compared to true-crime podcasts, the true-scandal limited series, and prime-time news specials.

This hour, we look at the hearings as television.

GUESTS:

James Poniewozik: Chief television critic for The New York Times and the author of Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America
Frank Rich: Writer-at-large for New York magazine and executive producer of HBO’s Succession

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Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.

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‘Like a prime-time news special’: The Jan. 6 Committee hearings as television