Fox News accused of being ‘Jussie Smollett of cable’ after host claimed it was the victim of a 'hate crime'

Ever since an arsonist set a giant Christmas tree ablaze outside of the News Corps/Fox News building in Manhattan, pundits on the show have engaged in melodramatic, over-the-top hyperventilating about the attack. The Toronto Star’s Vinay Menon, in a recent column, argues that all this melodrama over the fire has made Fox News the “Jussie Smollett of cable.”

Smollett is the actor who was convicted on five felony counts after, according to prosecutors, lying to law enforcement about being violently attacked by Donald Trump supporters in Chicago. The hate crime that Smollett reported, according to prosecutors, was a total fabrication.

The Christmas tree fire was not a fabrication; the tree really was set ablaze. But Menon stresses that Fox News went way overboard with its coverage, noting that the right-wing cable channel hasn’t given the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building nearly as much coverage as it has given the Christmas tree blaze — a point that has also been made by CNN’s Brianna Keilar.

Menon writes, “One of the network’s contributors, Rev. Jacques DeGraff, compared the tree inferno to the attack on Pearl Harbor…. But it was ‘Fox & Friends’ co-host Brian Kilmeade who blasted the snowflake pearl-clutching to Mars. While discussing this reckless vandalism by a troubled man of no fixed address, Kilmeade asked: ‘Who says it’s not a hate crime against us, against Fox News?’ And just like that, Fox News became the Jussie Smollett of cable.”

READ: 'Dumpster fire' Fox News trashed after Chris Wallace abruptly announces he just quit

Menon adds, “A hate crime?.... Are you seriously suggesting tree destruction is comparable to the murder of Emmett Till? Give your dopey head a shake.”