Thread by @NickFondacaro

FLASHBACK: This is going to be a thread about how major liberal news outlets have promoted, rationalized, and glorified the violence Antifa, a left-wing domestic terrorist organization.

Let's start with @NBCNews political director @chucktodd. He first gave Antifa a platform on his weekday show #MTPDaily. He allowed Antifa propagandist and lecturer Mark Bray to lie about the organization's roots and romanticize their violence
bit.ly/2x6MUWC

Three days later (August 20, 2017), @chucktodd invited Bray onto the set of @MeetThePress to debate the merits of politically motivated violence against anyone the group claimed was a "Nazi".
bit.ly/2xgolXq

In that instance, the Southern Poverty Law Center (a group that has spurred politically motivated violence, including a shooting, against right-wing organizations) was somehow the voice of reason against Antifa.

.@chucktodd has never apologized for inviting Bray onto his programs, or denounced Antifa's tactics. Not even after Dartmouth University (Bray's employer at the time) publicly denounced him for his support of politically motivated violence. He didn't even tell his viewers that.

Then, on the anniversary of the deadly Charlottesville protests (and almost the anni. of @chucktodd's interview with Bray) @NBCNews reporter Cal Perry and his crew were physically assaulted by Antifa while covering new protests in Charlottesville.

When reporting on the protests the next morning on #SundayTODAY, @NBCNews completely ignored the attacks on Perry and actually claimed the media were "heckled".
bit.ly/2OvS4Ej

Meanwhile, in Perry's video, a member of Antifa could be heard shouting "F**k you, snitch a** news b**ch. F**k you." And tried to either pull the camera away or knock it to the ground. "We’re getting a lot of this. Protesters trying to grab our camera," Perry said in a tweet.

Now let's shift over to @CNN where their hosts are much more overt with their support for politically motivated violence.
Just a couple days after the NBC crew was viciously attacked, @ChrisCuomo argued that Antifa had a superior "morality" in their side.
bit.ly/2B7fD4I

“There's a lot of about what-aboutism and spin going on. And it's kind of sickening to me,” @ChrisCuomo argued, “But I argue to you tonight, all punches are not equal morally."

.@ChrisCuomo would go on to suggest that there was no "moral equivalent" between Antifa and those they were targeting. "And in a clash between hate and those who oppose it, those who oppose it are on the side of right," he proclaimed.

By the end of the month, Cuomo fellow @CNN host and close friend, @donlemon was also rationalizing Antifa's violence. He would go a step further and claim that President Trump's denouncement of the group was somehow racist.
bit.ly/2N2WFAE

"Anti-Fascism, which is what they're fighting. Listen. There is, you know, no organization is perfect. There is some violence. No one condones the violence. But there are different reasons for Antifa and for these neo-Nazis to be there..."

(cont'd) "...One, racists, fascists, the other group fighting racists, fascists, there is fascists. There is a distinction there," @donlemon argued on behalf of Antifa.

Now, in April of this year, @ChrisCuomo was back to lionizing Antifa on his primetime show. While praising Antifa as "true" to a "good cause", he again claimed there was no "moral equivalent" between the left-wing group and the once they target.
bit.ly/2DGCbYN

“One of the groups is created to kill people they don't like. The other group and Black Lives Matter has hanger-ons and aberrant actors within their ranks but the groups were not created to destroy parts of humanity,” Cuomo defended them.

.@ChrisCuomo continued: "There are certainly aspects of them that are true to a cause. That is a good cause. They want social justice and whatever they want in that context,”

As recently as May, @CNN has normalized violence from Antifa.
In one of their #UnitedShades of America episodes, host @wkamaubell sat down with one and joked about their violence. He allowed his guess to suggest that if you thought "people deserve love", then you're with Antifa.

Bell claimed Antifa “doesn’t” fall on the typical left-right spectrum, though the member admitted she believed in “anarcho-communism.” Communism, an ideology that had left over 100 million people dead in the last century alone.
bit.ly/2DWqn4C

Bell also thought it was funny that the Antifa member he was speaking with carried around a large pocket knife and pink brass knuckles. "I use it for whatever I need to use it for," the woman told him. "Point taken," he replied.

The Antifa member bragged to @CNN about doxing a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. She shared posters she would put up around his neighborhood declaring he was a "modern day Nazi".

In a tone meant to mock those he was impersonating Bell said, “So, the argument from people on the left and right (...) are going to be like, ‘these are just people who have jobs and are trying to have a living, they're just trying to support their families.’”

In a CNN dot com article published in August of last year, reporters Sara Ganim and Chris Welch authored a piece with the headline: "Unmasking the leftist Antifa movement: Activists seek peace through violence”. It was later renamed to just "Unmasking the leftist Antifa movement"

"Antifa activists, who operate without any centralized leadership, told CNN that their goal is peace and inclusivity," they wrote (the article was last updated in May).
cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/…

Not only does the liberal media support Antifa by actively spinning and romanticizing their image, but they also do it by completely ignoring most of their violent activities.

When the D.C. area home of @FoxNews host @TuckerCarlson was besieged by an Antifa mob shouting implicit threats against the lives of him and his family, @CBSNews was the only broadcast network to give the story any airtime (@CBSEveningNews).
bit.ly/2OzjM2K

When the Oregon-based Antifa group known as Occupy ICE PDX was terrorizing Portland last summer, the liberal media all but ignored it. @MSNBC gave the story absolutely zero airtime while @CNN managed 32 seconds (16 seconds on July 1 and 24, each).
bit.ly/2NMGG6z

What didn't @CNN and @MSNBC want to share with viewers? Well, the @Oregonian reported that the Antifa group was shouting racial slurs at minority police officers.

"[O]ne African American officer reported to an administrator that protesters 'began yelling racial slurs' at him, including the N-word. The officer said he was also called a 'blood traitor' and an Uncle Tom..." Now that doesn't sound like what @ChrisCuomo told us about Antifa

That report can be found here: expo.oregonlive.com/news/erry-2018…

The Antifa group also attacked and threatened to burn down a local eatery that helps feed the homeless because they refused to join in the violence. But according to @CNN's @ChrisCuomo and @donlemon, these are fine moral people.
tinyurl.com/yy9tuop3

Keeping on the topic of the media ignoring Antifa, a study by @theMRC found that the evening newscasts of the major broadcast networks shared 185 soundbites of pro-immigration protesters but turned a blind eye to the "Occupy ICE" Antifa group. bit.ly/2NMGG6z

Let's go back to @CNN for a little bit.
After @ChrisCuomo argued that Antifa's politically motivated violence was somehow moral, @domlemon doubled down: "Sometimes you can't fight by praising them or being nice to them. You gotta fight fire with fire..."
bit.ly/2OAwkae

Then there's this disgusting tweet from two years ago where @ChrisCuomo equated the communist Antifa to the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/897820041273626626

An important thing to remember while looking at how the liberal media cover for Antifa: In 2017, @politico published an article detailing how the FBI and Homeland Security view the Antifa organizations as a serious domestic threat.

According to their reporting, since 2016 federal authorities had warned local law enforcement of "leftist extremists known as 'antifa' had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous,..." [1/2]

[2/2] "...so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as 'domestic terrorist violence,' according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by [@politico]."

So, while @MSNBC's @chucktodd was giving Antifa a platform on his shows, and @CNN hosts @ChrisCuomo, @donlemon, and @wkamaubell were romanticizing the tactics/violence, and @ABC, @CBSNews, and @NBCNews were ignoring the violence, the feds identified Antifa as domestic terrorists.

I think that's all for now. It's getting late and I have work tomorrow. To all my new followers, welcome and you can catch more of my analysis at: newsbusters.org

Included in this thread is reporting from my @newsbusters colleagues Kristine Marsh and Bill D’Agostino, and myself. If they had Twitter accounts I would include them.

Also included is a piece by @SearsAl from when he interned at @newsbusters

Just realized I forgot to include a link to the @politico article about the FBI and Homeland Security labeling #Antifa a domestic terrorist group: politico.com/story/2017/09/…

Working through some technical difficulties but hopefully I will have a new citation for this thread. HINT: @ABC’s @GMA reported on the violence but didn’t mention Antifa or the “brain bleed” of @MrAndyNgo.

Here it is:

https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/1145377908824956928

Here's another one for the pile. @brianstelter says all the right things to condemn the attack against @MrAndyNgo, but fails to condemn his @CNN colleagues @ChrisCuomo, @donlemon, and @wkamaubell for promoting #AntifaTerrorists

https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/1145415380862754823

Here's an update from my @newsbusters colleague @CurtisHouck. "[T]he flagship major broadcast networks @CBSNews and @NBCNews still have yet to acknowledge the Antifa violence" that left @MrAndyNgo hospitalized. It's been 2 days.
bit.ly/2XFszZE

Following a failed terrorist attack by Antifa to bomb and burn down an ICE facility in Tacoma, Washington over the weekend, @CBSNews and @NBCNews ignored it completely.
ow.ly/DHaM101FS1x

The Antifa terrorist tried to blow a propane tank when he was shot and killed by police. Yet no coverage from @CBSNews and @NBCNews. The only coverage was 17 seconds from @ABC’s @GMA on Sunday.