Media Organizations Demand Access to Capitol Attack Footage to Ensure Public Has Access to Full Historical Record

A group of media organizations, including CBS News, is demanding access to a tranche of surveillance and police videos from the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol that U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy provided to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

In a letter to congressional leadership Friday, the media companies argued that the footage McCarthy allowed Carlson and Fox News to access should be made available to other media groups. The letter was sent by Laura Handman, a lawyer representing the media outlets.

The media organizations are concerned that without full public access to the complete historical record, an ideologically-based narrative of the already polarizing event could take hold in the public consciousness, with destabilizing risks to the nation.

The letter states that the media organizations understand that McCarthy provided the Tucker Carlson Tonight television program with access to certain Congressional records, specifically, previously unavailable video footage from the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The letter requests that McCarthy share thousands of hours of security footage from the attack.

The media organizations are hoping that McCarthy will make the footage available to all media outlets, in order to ensure that the public has access to the full historical record of the event. This would help to ensure that the narrative of the event is not based on any one ideological viewpoint, and that the public can form their own opinions based on the facts.