The Media's Lack of Accountability For The Ferguson Riots—And The Ferguson Effect Murders
11/18/2017
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Commenter loveofknowledge writes:

The whole time the Ferguson Michael Brown hoax was going on, I was asking myself, why are they doing this? Are they TRYING to start a riot?

If the media gets everybody convinced that this was a case of an innocent black kid murdered by a racist white cop… well then people are going to expect an arrest, trial, and conviction of the cop.

When that doesn’t happen, people will be angry and think the system is racist. And nobody will know that the real reason the cop can’t possibly be charged with anything is because the black kid was actually the perpetrator and not the victim, as the witness testimony and physical evidence makes clear.

Criminal charges against the media for inciting riots? They certainly would deserve it, whether that’s really possible legally I don’t know. But it would have been a start if anyone had even called them out on it verbally! President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder totally went along with the hoax, but I don’t even remember any Republicans making any forceful denunciations of the whole thing.

The Michael Brown hoax was actually a major factor in me ultimately voting for Trump. If Trump had been president at the time, it could never have happened like that. He would have destroyed it with one tweet about the lying press, fake news, etc. – maybe with a link to the Justice Department report (which if you haven’t read it, really lays out how unambiguous that case truly was; the evidence overwhelmingly backs Officer Darren Wilson’s version of events).

That story went on for months and made me feel like the little kid in the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, even around my own family and peers. When everybody gets their news from mainstream sources, everybody believes these narratives, and they think I’m the one that’s crazy.

It’s not like I had to dig that deep either, the truth about that case was reported in mainstream sources like the L.A. Times and Washington Post, which I found from Drudge Report direct links.

That’s part of how media bias works I realize, they actually do report the facts, they just create a misleading impression if you don’t read carefully and already have a degree of skepticism. I know Steve has talked about that a lot.

I have to wonder though, is there any hope for ever having an honest media? What’s it going to take, and what’s the strategy? I appreciate that there are commentators like Steve who point out the lies, but nothing ever seems to change.

There should have been all sorts of self-criticism in the media about how they screwed up the Michael Brown story so badly. There should have been presentations and panel discussions about it at conferences that journalists go to or whatever. There should have been public acknowledgements of it and vows to regain the public trust and restore integrity in the business. As far as I know, nothing of the sort has happened.

All that has happened is the number of homicides went up 20% from 2014 to 2016.

[Comment at Unz.com]

 

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