As the first anniversary of the Capitol insurrection on January 6th approaches, news organizations have a duty to deny Donald Trump the platform he so desires for his press conference on that day.

Trump announced the press conference in a statement last month.

The statement made it clear that he intends to repeat his lies about the 2020 Election and downplay the insurrection. Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol that day in an attempt to overthrow democracy, even searching for lawmakers to assassinate in their scheme to make Trump a dictator.

Trump will likely claim that the insurrectionists were merely peaceful protesters and claim that the violence was all staged by “deep state” actors.

The House January 6th Committee is currently investigating Trump and the actions he and his allies took that day. Trump has already been exposed for watching the violence unfold for three hours and doing nothing to stop it in the hopes his coup attempt would succeed. The evidence is mounting against Trump and complicit Republican lawmakers.

This is why it’s important that the media refuse to cover Trump’s press conference. All he is going to do is lie and rant while trying to incite further violence. January 6th was just the beginning of a coup that is ongoing. If news outlets give Trump free time to rail against the investigation and our democracy or fail to at least fact-check him thoroughly, each of those networks will be complicit in the coup as well.

In a statement to PoliticusUSA, Media Matters of America President Angelo Carusone urged networks to deny Trump the live coverage he craves.

“Donald Trump’s January 6 press event should be recognized for what it is: an opportunity for Trump to lie to downplay the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and set up his 2024 presidential campaign,” Carusone said. “It is critical that news networks do the right thing — refuse to carry it live, so they do not uncritically promote the lies and disinformation that is generated from Trump’s speech in real-time.”

The media needs to stand up for democracy. The media needs to be responsible for once and keep Trump off the airwaves. Our democracy is under siege. And Trump is the reason why. Giving him a platform to gaslight and divide Americans only makes him more dangerous. Surely, the networks don’t want to be part of that.

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