It’s time to revisit the coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse.
With the news that he has been acquitted on all counts, don’t forget the ways that Dems and the corporate press came together to craft a false narrative in his case.
Let’s break down how we got here⤵️
We need to start with the media coverage that framed this case in the public mind.
To the press, Rittenhouse was as good as guilty when the news broke. So naturally, to @CNN, the people he shot in self defense were heroes & those defending him had “justified murder.”
This wasn’t just limited to CNN.
@nytimes put out what amounts to a hit piece on Rittenhouse because his “social media accounts showed strong support for officers.”
They even put out a piece about how right-wingers attacking protestors was some sort of phenomenon.
Never to be outdone, @MSNBC said the shooting was white supremacy and then went on to blame - who else - President Trump for “fueling violence,” sowing “chaos and disorder” and “encouraging vigilante justice” (peep that last guest)
Perhaps no one in the media has spent more time sharing inaccurate information than @JoyAnnReid. This was no exception.
She lumped Rittenhouse in with “white nationalist mobs” and accused Trump of “ethnic cleansing” (!!) for daring to defend Rittenhouse.
Once again, @briantylercohen hosts a show called “No Lie” and yet spouts nonsense and misinformation in a nearly unparalleled way.
You may remember that, later on in the news cycle, President Trump spoke about Rittenhouse, suggesting he acted in self defense.
@AP took this as an opportunity to fact check that, dinging Trump for - I kid you not - defending someone who “opposed racial-justice protestors”
Speaking of fact checks, here’s @PolitiFact claiming that Trump lied when he said Rittenhouse was trying to get away from protestors and was attacked - both details have since been confirmed by video.
Will you update your inaccurate post, Politifact? Or the gun charge details?
@NPR picked up on a similar sentiment, knocking Trump for “claiming, without evidence, that it appeared the gunman was acting in self-defense.”
Now we’ve had a court of law confirm it was using videos and context many of which were available at the time.
Again, the framing of what happened was always preposterous. Here’s @Yamiche from NPR claiming that the takeaway was meant to be “that ifs okay for a 17-year old to shoot people on the street who are unarmed, who are at a protest.”
This is impossible to square with the facts.
@washingtonpost and @AaronBlake made the same case. While they might’ve forgiven Trump had he only declined to denounce Rittenhouse, that he would “volunteer defenses” for someone who acted in self-defense was simply beyond the pale.
This is meant as straight news coverage.
Also, as a call out, this type of deceptive coverage is still going on.
During the trial, @Reuters described someone who attacked Rittenhouse as the “survivor of shooting by U.S, teen” while @CBSMornings said Rittenhouse “murdered two men” (h/t @BecketAdams)
I don’t know that one could even call this commentary from @NYMag journalism.
I don’t have space for all the awful coverage, but here’s a smattering from @USATODAY (doesn’t sound like it), @CBSNews (interesting the trending Twitter topics that make headlines) and @thedailybeast (“fanatic”).
The takeaway audience were meant to have was clear.
And wrong.
Perhaps the most famous accusations came not from the media but from elected representatives.
@AyannaPressley called Rittenhouse a “white supremacist domestic terrorist” while @IlhanMN just went with “domestic terrorist.”
I ask earnestly: is this not libelous?
The now-President, @JoeBiden, called Rittenhouse a white supremacist absent evidence.
I want to pause to drive that point home: the most powerful man on the planet used his influence & authority to libel a teenager while said teenager faced spurious, politically driven charges.
It’s hard to keep track of all the Democratic elected officials who baselessly accused Rittenhouse of being some variety of evil.
My two cents is that the world would be better if more men with guns showed up to town when the criminal anarchists descended and the police were told to stand down.
But even if you think differently, it is impossible to square this coverage with what actually happened.
All of this misinformation will only serve as an accelerant for America’s contentious conversations around race at a time when race relations are cratering.
And these brazen lies were told when a young man’s life quite literally was hanging in the balance.
My takeaway from this: I hope that Rittenhouse has a good attorney experienced in libel cases for the work ahead.
And I hope that everyday people remember the power the media & politicians have to destroy the life of an innocent man.
For what it’s worth, my understanding is that it’s really difficult to win a libel claim against the press or a public figure, even with something this egregious.
Whatever else you make of that fact, it certainly means that situations like this will continue to happen.
Also, for those who have asked about throwing me beer money, I’ve turned on tips. These have always been a labor of love but i won’t pretend they aren’t time intensive.
You can click the link on my profile (image below) to get there on mobile, and there’s also a Bitcoin option.
Just unbelievable framing here from the Times, as if it is some grave injustice that the prosecution in a criminal case must...meet a burden. nytimes.com/2021/11/19/us/…
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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.