I know it may seem straight out of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but the supposed-racist-barrage-turned-innocent-fan-behavior this weekend in Colorado says a lot about the media.
I try to unpack why after some highlights from the unfounded outrage. ⤵️
For those unaware: over the weekend, a fan reportedly called an MLB player a racial slur. Not 24 hours later, the team concluded he was just calling out the name of the team’s mascot, Dinger.
But if you read the @nytimes, that the story was even in doubt likely escaped you.
But, as ever, it wasn’t just the Times. Not to be outdone, @CNN also got in on the act, making the same allegation.
Again, no hesitation, no couched language, no waiting for the story to play out with additional information. Just confident - and totally misplaced - assurance.
@washingtonpost really leaned into the narrative on this one.
As you can see from the opening paragraph (and h/t to @ChuckRossDC for finding this) there isn’t any equivocation: “The n-word was shouted multiple times from the stands”
That, simply, wasn’t true.
I think this story/correction from @AP is illustrative of the point here.
For the first tweet, you have certainty: a fan did this racist thing.
But then, as soon as the narrative went bunk, you get words like “suspected” start to creep in.
Where was that framing to begin with?
A lot of the updates took a similar route as APs.
Safe to say there’s a slight difference in tone between this original @USATODAY piece and the follow up one from when it became clear the first was wrong.
@NBCNews almost couched this but decided to go with “apparently” instead, and then leaned into how this was an “ugly incident” despite none of the players on either team noticing anything was amiss.
@BroBible is a name I never envisioned including in a thread if I’m being honest.
And the coverage even made it international! Here you’ve got @Independent from the UK and this truly outrageous take from @heraldsunsport in Australia.
Short on space but we saw the same thing from both the Post and @NYDailyNews.
The response from the @Rockies was pretty terrible.
How do you conclude, right off the bat, that your own fans are vile racists, without even bothering to investigate?
But even their self-flaggelating and inaccurate apology wasn’t enough for many on Twitter. Here’s just a brief snapshot of journalists and other blue checks. @rolandsmartin, @TroyWestwood & @mollyhc
Again, this is in response to an apology for something that didn’t happen!
And a lot of people across the media ran with this one when they should’ve known better.
Here’s @BNightengale, a sports columnists for USA Today, suggesting that this guy (who, again, didn’t do anything wrong!) should be put in jail.
It always pays to follow the @EsotericCD rule: when something outlandish happens, don’t rage tweet about it for twenty four hours.
@Phil_Lewis_ of HuffPost helped get the outrage going, in a since-deleted tweet.
Something tells me we’ll get a lot of quiet deletes and stealth edits as a result of all this.
I won’t pretend I had expected anything better from @KeithOlbermann, though.
Listen, I’m a Red Sox fan. I won’t pretend there aren’t racist incidents in the MLB (or other sports) or that they aren’t heinous when they happen.
But a quick way to turn people off to a problem is to play the boy who cried wolf. A lot of folks across the media did that here.
An earnest desire for change sometimes has a funny way of turning shadows into monsters. I hope folks will take this as a reminder to slow down, especially when something happens that is both outrageous and conveniently aligned with one’s narrative.
Especially in the media.
No, this isn’t Russiagate. It’s a dumb misunderstanding that’ll quickly recede from memory. But it is emblematic of an enormous problem with the corporate press.
Information that sounds right to a journalist is increasingly treated as fact, and we’re all poorer for it.
That’s the real problem here. We had uncorroborated information that - in the blink of an eye - became a story, reported in a uniform fashion across the corporate press.
If a story like this can take shape this quickly, what outrage mob can’t?
Also, accidentally posted an updated @nytimes story. The original was way worse.
Great work everyone.
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With the news that Trump freed the hostages and brokered an Israel/Hamas ceasefire, I thought it would be a good time to check in on the folks who compared the president to Hitler over the last few years, for reasons that I hope are obvious to you.
Remember? ⤵️
You may think the “Trump is literally Hitler” phrase is just a silly joke.
But for years, media outlets and left-wing voices on the internet have insisted that, no, really, Trump is just like Hitler.
Few have done so with as much gusto as @CNN.
Back in 2016, @CNN alleged that Trump rallies were just like Hitler rallies because…Trump had attendees raise their right hands.
A newly declassified CIA report on Joe Biden & Ukraine blows the doors off claims from the legacy press, in the lead up to the 2020 election and beyond, that Trump was pushing a “conspiracy theory” about Biden’s corruption.
Remember how the press buried Burisma? ⤵️
First, the facts. The report unearths how Biden blocked the release of intel from Ukrainian sources validating allegations of bribery tied to Biden’s diplomatic push to oust a prosecutor there in 2015, tied to his son Hunter’s work with the gas company Burisma.
You may remember this story because Biden’s having helped oust a prosecutor in a foreign country to allegedly protect his family’s corruption came up in the 2020 election.
To hear @ABC tell it, that was a “debunked Ukraine conspiracy theory.”
The media are melting down about former FBI director Jim Comey’s indictment, calling it Trump’s “retribution.”
But if prosecuting a political rival is such an outrage, why’d they cheer along when Biden went after Trump, Bannon & Navarro?
Some side-by-sides ⤵️
I want you to help me spot the difference in tone.
With Comey, @CNN put five — five! — reporters on the byline to declare the indictment was an “escalation” in “Trump’s effort to prosecute his political enemies.”
Where was that when Biden’s DOJ indicted Bannon? “A victory”
And @CNN wasn’t any better on Peter Navarro, another Trump aide indicted under Biden.
Rather than an “effort to prosecute…political enemies,” CNN quoted the prosecutor to tell the story.
Why is the claim of the government the framing of the piece under Biden? I have a guess.
The outrage over Kimmel’s canning is incredibly stupid, but it’s also enormously rich coming from the same media outlets who have cheered the government actually censoring people, particularly during COVID.
Let me know if you can spot the difference in tone? ⤵️
This @CNN headline made me think this story needed a thread.
Kimmel’s suspension is “straight from a European strongman’s playbook,” per @CNN’s @brianstelter.
When Biden cracked down on free speech during Covid, CNN hyped up the effort.
Few promoted the government’s actual attack on free speech more aggressively than the same @brianstelter now calling a comedian’s shelving evidence of autocracy, or something.
I know there’s a lot going on but we just had a media conspiracy implode that I think captures something important about the corporate press.
Did you hear about how Trump was allegedly going after John Bolton as retribution for his criticism?
Well…follow along ⤵️
We saw a week straight of media suggestions that Trump was abusing the powers of the state to deal out “retribution” to John Bolton following the news that the FBI (“Trump’s DOJ!” headlines rang out) raided his house.
We were in “unsettling” times, to hear @nytimes tell it.
The *Editorial Board* at @nytimes put out an even more dramatic statement, asking who Trump’s next payback victim after Bolton would be.
A single poll has bootstrapped a media narrative that DC residents are outraged by Trump’s takeover.
I poked around the cross tabs of the poll — of 600 or so of DC’s more comfortable residents — and I think it’s pretty suspect.
How come? Follow along: ⤵️
Let’s start with the poll. The @washingtonpost talked to 604 people, of whom 90% — 90%! — self-described as living in “very good” or “good” neighborhoods.
So, fine. 80% of people who like where they live in DC are upset.
But even beyond that, it’s worth asking whether this poll really captures DC’s opinion.
In the poll, only 31% describe crime as a “serious” or “very serious” problem in DC.
When @washingtonpost asked this same question in May, *50%* said it was a serious problem.