Media Shame: Savage Attacks on Catholic Teens

Wearing a red hat in America has been demonized by the news media and those who hate the president.  A small group of teens recently discovered the depth of this loathing . They were mocked, taunted and verbally assaulted for the crime of donning Make America Great Again hats.

For their grievous sin, these students from a Kentucky Catholic high school have endured media smears, death threats and character assassination.  The media fueled furor over the incident at the national March for Life forced the school to shutter its doors for fear of violence against its students.

How could this happen in America?  The blame rests squarely on the stoop shouldered news media. Journalists, a misnomer if there ever was one, jumped to conclusions based on their own biases and spread a false narrative about an incident involving the school kids, endangering their lives.

A small group of Covington Catholic High School youngsters were peacefully leaving the pro-life rally in Washington, D.C when a handful of black Hebrew Israelites and left-wing activists hurled insults at the students.  In response, the students sang their school song, refusing the hateful bait.

Then a self-appointed Native American activist entered the fray, banging a drum and confronting one of the students.  To his credit, the student only smiled without uttering a word.  Within minutes, a video appeared on social media that exploded into bombastic news coverage by the media.

America's media, its reputation for fairness long ago shredded, based its reporting mostly on a snippet of video and the comments of Native American Nathan Phillips, who claimed to be a a Vietnam War veteran. News commentators inflamed passions by hastily condemning the kids.

Television reporters denounced the youngsters as bigots.  Journalists called them "privileged" white elitists.  Hollywood actors suggested they kids should be hunted down and punched in the face.  Some on social media called for the youngsters to be killed.

Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, an anti-Semite serving her first term in the U.S. Congress, tweeted: "The boys were protesting a woman's right to choose & yelled, "It's not rape if you enjoy it." They were taunting 5 Black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist chants."

NBC called the incident "a troubling scene many are calling racist played out in Washington."  CNN, the network no one should trust, described the scene as a "mob of MAGA hat-wearing high school students." An MSNBC news panelist compared the students to neo-Nazis.

USA Today featured an interview with Phillips, who belittled the youngsters as "beastly" and having a "mob mentality." The New York Times labeled the teenagers "racists" for mocking a veteran.  The Washington Post lambasted the Catholic Church's sordid history of Native American abuses.

These choir boy-faced high school youths overnight became the most hated figures in America.  Then the media story began to unravel.  As more video surfaced of the incident near the Lincoln Memorial, it became obvious the teenagers were passive bystanders, not the aggressors.

No video evidence exists showing the kids shouting anything racist or mentioning rape.  The adult sponsors accompanying the youngsters publicly discredited the media's version.  A youth wearing the MAGA hat was interviewed and refuted the remarks that the activists claimed he made.

Why didn't the news media interview the sponsors and the youngsters before they rushed to judgment?  The answer is obvious.  There were not interested in the truth.  They wanted to advance the narrative of MAGA hats being a symbol of bigotry.  Their hatred for Trump was bared. 

The Native American Philips was unmasked as a career provocateur who regularly shows up a protests, representing himself.  He is not an Vietnam veteran as he claims.  He served in the Marine Reserves, spending most of his time in sunny California instead of the steamy jungles of Vietnam.

A day after the confrontation Phillips disrupted mass at Washington's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, beating his drum and marching down the aisles.  Phillips is a trouble maker not a peacemaker.  He is a charlatan.  His real name is Nathaniel R. Stanard.

As the truth emerged, some media outlets tried to walk back the story in an attempt to salvage their tattered reputations.  But too many newsrooms decided to just let the story fade away rather than apologizing to the school and the teenagers they ran roughshod over.

Beside the obvious malicious reporting, there are two recurring themes this incident illuminates.  The first is the media has abandoned all pretense of being unbiased.  Journalists are out to tarnish the president even if a falsehood has to be dressed up as legitimate news.  It is shameful and indefensible.

The second is a virulent strain of anti-Catholicism is rising in the country.  These youngsters were singled out because of their religion as much as for their alleged behavior.  This bigoted religious bias also reared its ugly head during the confirmation of Justice Gorsuch and other Catholic judges.

The Covington Catholic High School recently reopened its doors to students.  But the fallout from the media coverage of the pro-life rally will haunt these youngsters for the remainder of their lives. They have been permanently tarnished as extremists and racists.  The stain will linger.

Meanwhile, the media will turn its attention to the next scandal, unconcerned about the damage its erroneous reporting inflicted on innocent young people.  Polling shows Americans' trust in the media has sunk to an all-time low.  In the current environment, it is a race to rock bottom.