We’re seeing a narrative evolve in real time in Lancaster, PA that omits the fact that the man who was shot & killed by police was actively trying to kill a police officer, even w/ bodycam evidence.
Enormously irresponsible, especially given the current climate.
We’ll start with @AP. They just so happened to leave out the reason why the officer was running away - a direct threat against his life - but managed to get the suspects race involved.
Reporting from @AP got picked up all over, as it does, and recycled through the same lens.
Here’s @usnews, who manage to scrub the knife detail and focus instead on the trendy topics: police shootings and protests.
Which is exactly the problem. By shoehorning a very obviously justified police use of force into the current narrative, you erase the details that matter.
I usually leave out local stations because they do a hard and thankless job, but you can already see the narrative forming here.
And the usual arsonists jumped on the pile.
It is absolutely impossible to look at the bodycam video and conclude that the “police summarily executed” anyone, @greg_doucette.
And the usual clickbait folks jump in. Here’s @revolttv.
And before you know it, the issue - framed in a way that doesn’t fit the facts - is trending on twitter.
Shouldn’t need to be pointed out but this is REALLY bad.
This death, like any other, is a tragedy. But that doesn’t mean it fits your world view or advances your narrative just because of a few of the details of the event.
If reporting obfuscates more than it reveals about these kinds of things, we’ll all be worse off.
I have a bad feeling this thread will need to be added on to as more places pick up the story, especially national outlets.
Also, shouldn’t be lost on anyone that all of this is happening while two officers in LA are battling for their lives after someone attempted to assassinate them.
You want to know where the anti-police animus comes from? I’ve got a guess.
For those asking I don’t have anything to support or subscribe to but I do these threads often so throw me a follow if you’d like.
And remember in your charity the families of police officers killed in the line of duty. If you can give, here’s a good org: charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Biden’s disastrous debate performance brought to a screeching halt a multi-year campaign from the media to present the president as mentally fit.
Do you really remember how hard the press pushed you not to trust your lyin’ eyes on Biden’s decline?
Start here ⤵️
I suspect most of you remember the allegations from the White House that videos showing Biden behaving erratically were “cheap fakes.”
The media rushed to repeat this claim. Look at the extent @nytimes went to say you didn’t see anything and that Biden was fine.
Perhaps the wildest was @washingtonpost, who gave “Four Pinocchio’s” to videos showing Biden displaying cognitive problems, dismissing them as fakes, “pernicious” efforts “to reinforce an existing stereotype.”
Part of their defense was that Biden “doesn’t dance.”
You remember Russian Collusion. But do you remember the “Russian bounties” allegation, where the press ran with a conspiracy theory to make Trump look like a monster?
With the debate tonight, I think it’s timely to revisit a falsehood Biden pushed. Follow along ⤵️
It started with a scoop from @nytimes that claimed Russia had placed bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan, that Trump knew about it, and he did nothing.
Days later, @washingtonpost followed up with the claim that these bounties—again, allegedly ignored by Trump—led to the deaths of American servicemen.
Do you *really* remember the Hunter Biden laptop story? I fear we’ve lost the plot.
With Hunter’s name in the news I wanted to revisit the extent to which the media went to cover up corruption allegations against—and at the behest of—his father.
Follow along. ⤵️
You have to start with the scoop from @nypost and @EmmaJoNYC.
Their lede from October was damning:
“Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.”
The story was fundamentally about Joe Biden’s alleged corruption. It was huge news, on the eve of an election.
The press leapt to claim the scoop wasn’t legit. And they reframed the issue: now it was about Hunter, not Joe. Here’s @NPR before/after
Good to see the NYT’s considerable resources being put to finding the truth in a debate between private citizens that led one of them to raise a flag upside down.
Real afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted stuff here.
It has only become “news” because of the pivot to left wing clickbait that Trump inspired among the press.
It’s politically inspired harassment and not only is it noxious it’s driving a deep animus among its target demo that is fraying what remains of the bounds of our body politic and society more broadly.
I’ve got an oldie-but-a-goodie for you from the archive of unhinged media coverage.
Do you remember how insane the coverage of Trump’s killing of Iranian Gen. Soleimani was?
I bet it’s worse than you remember. Follow along ⤵️
It all started with what I’ve gotta say might be the coldest presidential use of social media in history.
After ordering the strike that killed Iranian General Qaseem Soleimani, Trump tweeted out simply a picture of an American flag.
Many in the media went berserk.
First, the issue was directly with what Trump had done. Outlets claimed that he was rushing America into a war. @washingtonpost tried to point out the hypocrisy of a president who had said he would prevent a war.