House GOP Ripping C-SPAN for Alleged Snub of NYC Field Hearing

The House Judiciary Committee Republicans are warning of left-wing bias of C-SPAN after it had reportedly declined to set up a camera for Monday’s field hearing on crime in New York City.

“Is @cspan the latest version of media bias?” the House Judiciary GOP Twitter account tweeted Saturday afternoon, linking to a story reporting on C-SPAN’s cold shoulder to covering GOP-led congressional hearings.

The account has been questioning C-SPAN’s original reasoning for not having a camera on the House Judiciary field hearing.

“I wanted to reach out to you as soon as I could to let you know that we won’t be able [to] send a crew to cover the House Judiciary field hearing on Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan on Monday,” C-SPAN assignment desk manager Jon Kelley wrote to the committee Wednesday, according to reports. “I know it is making a lot of news and we did look at possible coverage but we just don’t have the resources at this time.”

House Judiciary Committee staffer responded incredulously to the email.

“Are you all serious?” the staffer fired back in an email, the New York Post reported. “It’s the biggest hearing in Congress that I can think of.”

Kelley replied in an email.

“I just wanted to let you know as soon as I could,” he wrote.

But a Friday tweet exchange suggested C-SPAN is now planning to have a camera at the field hearing in Manhattan.

“This is a lie and hasn’t been expressed directly to the committee,” the House Judiciary GOP account tweeted in response to C-SPAN’s claim it planned all along to have a camera there.

Media reports about the potential Monday snub by C-SPAN might have led to a change in available “resources,” and the House Judiciary GOP prodding.

“Unbelievable, @cspan,” its Twitter account posted earlier Friday, leaking to a report about the potential snub.

Unlike the recent Twitter-National Public Radio spat, C-SPAN notes on its website it “receives no government funding.”

“Funding comes through license fees paid by television providers — the cable and satellite companies that offer C-SPAN to their customers as a public service — and through advertisements on our digital platforms,” the FAQ page reads. “C-SPAN’s mission is to provide our audience with access to the live, gavel-to-gavel proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and to the other forums where public policy is discussed, debated and decided — all without editing, commentary or analysis, and with a balanced presentation of points of view.”

But C-SPAN has already skipped the House GOP border field hearing in February, because of no “Dem members” in attendance, according to the Post.

This time, Democrats reportedly are going to attend the Manhattan field hearing on violent crime with plans to pivot the conversation to gun control, CBS News reported.

The House Judiciary GOP account posted a poll asking, “Who’s worse: C-SPAN, NPR, or Joe Biden.”

Biden dominated that poll at around 87%, while C-SPAN (5.1%) edged out NPR (7.7%) as being slightly less worse to respondents.

The House Judiciary GOP account has bashed C-SPAN for using resources on other Democrat-friendly endeavors this week

“‘Resources’ for this, but not our field hearing on crime,” a Friday tweet read, “@cspan is totally out-of-touch.”