Washington Post opinion writer Erik Wemple noted that while Fox News has often heavily covered the 2012 Benghazi attacks, “the Benghazi network,” as he called it, abandoned live coverage of Hillary Clinton's testimony before the House Select Committee this evening in favor of general political commentary on The Five.

Wemple described Fox's decision as “conceding that today's marathon congressional hearing on the topic is going nowhere.” Several conservative media figures have similarly responded to the hearing with distress.

From Wemple's October 22 post:

Even the network that ran almost 1,100 segments on Benghazi in the 20 months after the attack appears to be conceding that today's marathon congressional hearing on the topic is going nowhere. In the 5 p.m. hour, when competing networks CNN and MSNBC stuck closely to live coverage of the all-day hearing, the Fox News program “The Five” started to drift.

While the Benghazi committee was churning along, the flamboyant co-hosts of the roundtable program -- Eric Bolling, Greg Gutfeld, Juan Williams, Dana Perino and Kimberly Guilfoyle -- were trading thoughts not about what former secretary of state Hillary Clinton was doing on that fateful night; not about why on earth her private e-mail account did so much business with an e-mail account of friend Sidney Blumenthal; not about whether this whole special Benghazi committee is a “partisan witch hunt,” as some partisan has said at one point or another. They were talking about Donald Trump!

[...]

We're with Fox News here: “The Five” on Trump is far preferable to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Clinton on Benghazi. Or Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Clinton on Benghazi. Or whoever on Clinton on Benghazi. It's just a little precious that this network, the Benghazi network, made the call to move away. Just goes to show that the ideology of Fox News may appear to be Benghazi and Kill Obamacare, but it's really ratings.