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.
Showing posts with label Fake News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fake News. Show all posts
Monday, January 28, 2019
Monday, August 13, 2018
News Media Has Lost Americans' Trust
Media elites, chafing under withering criticism from President Trump and his spokespersons, are infuriated over attacks impugning the integrity of news reporting. News execs are pitching a temper tantrum, calling the vilificaton an assault on the First Amendment guarantee of a free press.
There's nothing unusual about an adversarial relationship between the media and White House, but the current environment is toxic. Hostilities recently escalated into a fiery war of words over testy White House press briefings and the heckling of a CNN reporter at a Trump campaign rally.
Newspaper editors and television officials are framing the issue as an altruistic battle over a free and open press versus government censorship. But their real motive is less magnanimous. News organizations are trying to salvage their already tattered public standing, which has sunk to new lows.
A 2016 Pew Research study found that only 18 percent of Americans have a "a lot of trust" in national newspaper, television and radio news media. In a poll last year, Gallup reported that only 32 percent of adults have a "great deal" or "fair" amount of trust in the news media.
These are historic troughs for the news media. However, it is hardly breaking news. There has been a steady erosion in public opinion of the integrity of the news media over the last 20 years, stretching back to 1997. The downdraft did not begin with the election of Donald Trump.
In fact, an exhaustive study commissioned by the American Society of Newspapers Editors in 1998 uncovered that 78 percent of respondents agreed there is "bias" in reporting. A CBS News/New York Times poll in 2006 affirmed that only four in 10 adults believed news reports are truthful.
Those are alarming numbers for the news industry, which is suffering from dwindling newspaper readership, plummeting television viewership and tumbling radio ratings. The news business' high-stakes struggle for survival is being undermined by its flagging public image.
News officials may be outraged by the labeling of their reporting as "fake news," but they have given their detractors plenty of ammunition. There has been an epidemic of reporting that has proven to be false, misleading or deliberately biased. Examples abound across all media.
After Mr. Trump's victory, reports circulated on social media and the news that multiple transgender teenagers had committed suicide in response to his election. Even Snopes, an alleged fact-checking website, called the rumors "unconfirmed" rather than false. Turns out the news was indeed a fraud.
Later in November, the New York Magazine claimed a group of computer scientists and election lawyers were demanding a recount in three states won by Mr. Trump. The story was picked up by most media outlets. No proof was ever produced by the so-called experts and the story was pulled.
Another bombshell that exploded in the media's faces was a report that a Muslim business owner flew to Iraq to bring his sick mother to America for medical treatment. The woman supposedly died because her flight was delayed by the immigration ban. The account was a total fabrication.
Associated Press reported that the House had voted to roll back Obama rules on background checks for gun ownership a year ago. The news created hysteria on social media. Some might call the story misleading but it was downright deceitful. The House did no such thing.
For the record, the House repealed a narrow slice of the Obama era rule dealing with background checks for those with Social Security disability and adults receiving Supplemental Security Income. Even the American Association for People with Disabilities and the ACLU supported the change.
CNN has earned the title of least trusted network for egregious bogus reporting. CNN falsely reported the president removed a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King from his office. Three CNN employees resigned after the network retracted a story about a meeting between a Trump official and a Russian.
And on and on it goes. The New York Times falsely claimed on its front page that the Trump Administration had hidden a climate report. ABC demoted Brian Ross for a bungled report on Trump-Russia. The Washington Post posted a phony photo of an empty stadium for a Trump rally.
In each case, social media users amplified the lies thousands and thousands of times on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. One false story turns into a tsunami of fake news. That makes it even more incumbent on the legacy media to get its facts straight before the stories are reported as news.
There is no defense for the current spate of reckless reporting by the national media. The First Amendment is not a license for outright lying and deception. The media has an obligation to hold government accountable, but it must be credible to do its job the way the founders intended.
Journalists are the ones who can fix the credibility problem. Editors and media owners need to hold reporters accountable for truth and fairness or nothing will change. The choice is theirs. Either deal with the integrity issue or watch the news industry incinerate itself.
There's nothing unusual about an adversarial relationship between the media and White House, but the current environment is toxic. Hostilities recently escalated into a fiery war of words over testy White House press briefings and the heckling of a CNN reporter at a Trump campaign rally.
Newspaper editors and television officials are framing the issue as an altruistic battle over a free and open press versus government censorship. But their real motive is less magnanimous. News organizations are trying to salvage their already tattered public standing, which has sunk to new lows.
A 2016 Pew Research study found that only 18 percent of Americans have a "a lot of trust" in national newspaper, television and radio news media. In a poll last year, Gallup reported that only 32 percent of adults have a "great deal" or "fair" amount of trust in the news media.
These are historic troughs for the news media. However, it is hardly breaking news. There has been a steady erosion in public opinion of the integrity of the news media over the last 20 years, stretching back to 1997. The downdraft did not begin with the election of Donald Trump.
In fact, an exhaustive study commissioned by the American Society of Newspapers Editors in 1998 uncovered that 78 percent of respondents agreed there is "bias" in reporting. A CBS News/New York Times poll in 2006 affirmed that only four in 10 adults believed news reports are truthful.
Those are alarming numbers for the news industry, which is suffering from dwindling newspaper readership, plummeting television viewership and tumbling radio ratings. The news business' high-stakes struggle for survival is being undermined by its flagging public image.
News officials may be outraged by the labeling of their reporting as "fake news," but they have given their detractors plenty of ammunition. There has been an epidemic of reporting that has proven to be false, misleading or deliberately biased. Examples abound across all media.
After Mr. Trump's victory, reports circulated on social media and the news that multiple transgender teenagers had committed suicide in response to his election. Even Snopes, an alleged fact-checking website, called the rumors "unconfirmed" rather than false. Turns out the news was indeed a fraud.
Later in November, the New York Magazine claimed a group of computer scientists and election lawyers were demanding a recount in three states won by Mr. Trump. The story was picked up by most media outlets. No proof was ever produced by the so-called experts and the story was pulled.
Another bombshell that exploded in the media's faces was a report that a Muslim business owner flew to Iraq to bring his sick mother to America for medical treatment. The woman supposedly died because her flight was delayed by the immigration ban. The account was a total fabrication.
Associated Press reported that the House had voted to roll back Obama rules on background checks for gun ownership a year ago. The news created hysteria on social media. Some might call the story misleading but it was downright deceitful. The House did no such thing.
For the record, the House repealed a narrow slice of the Obama era rule dealing with background checks for those with Social Security disability and adults receiving Supplemental Security Income. Even the American Association for People with Disabilities and the ACLU supported the change.
CNN has earned the title of least trusted network for egregious bogus reporting. CNN falsely reported the president removed a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King from his office. Three CNN employees resigned after the network retracted a story about a meeting between a Trump official and a Russian.
And on and on it goes. The New York Times falsely claimed on its front page that the Trump Administration had hidden a climate report. ABC demoted Brian Ross for a bungled report on Trump-Russia. The Washington Post posted a phony photo of an empty stadium for a Trump rally.
In each case, social media users amplified the lies thousands and thousands of times on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. One false story turns into a tsunami of fake news. That makes it even more incumbent on the legacy media to get its facts straight before the stories are reported as news.
There is no defense for the current spate of reckless reporting by the national media. The First Amendment is not a license for outright lying and deception. The media has an obligation to hold government accountable, but it must be credible to do its job the way the founders intended.
Journalists are the ones who can fix the credibility problem. Editors and media owners need to hold reporters accountable for truth and fairness or nothing will change. The choice is theirs. Either deal with the integrity issue or watch the news industry incinerate itself.
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