Capitol rioters’ footage powers NYT’s ‘Day of Rage’ project

Some of the best sources for a painstaking video investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot were the rioters themselves — an irony given the hostility many journalists faced that day

NEW YORK -- While some professional journalists faced hostility and attack while covering the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the grand irony is that so many people involved in the insurrection were doing their jobs for them. That's evident with The New York Times' release of “Day of Rage,” a 40-minute video investigation that painstakingly examines the events of the day. The Times' team collected thousands of videos, starting the afternoon of Jan. 6, many of them posted on social media by the rioters themselves, said Malachy Browne, senior producer on the Times' visual investigations team. “As the realization set in among many of the participants about what they had done, and the implications of it, much of it was deleted,” Browne said. Too late. The Times had already protected its own copies.