Category: Culture War

Yesterday I told you about the complete media lies and demonisation of the MAGA hat wearing schoolboys from Covington Catholic School. Here are the specific mistakes the M5M made and here’s why they’re getting caught:

1. They ran a story that was basically a press release from far-left activists;
2. They had no journalists present, they were running with “social media” reports as their sources;
3. They did not spend any journalistic energy to watch all available sources, they stuck only with what their far-left activist circles were telling them.

As I said yesterday, this mirrors exactly what goes on in Israel with the press and especially the news wires like AP. Let’s look at the latest AP version of the story, an act that is unusual in itself: if the AP had reported this story correctly yesterday they wouldn’t have to write a new story today. The admission, just by covering this again, is that there were very important details they didn’t cover the first time.

Right there in the headline: “BREAKING” – how can it be BREAKING news that you actually got a comment from the person you set up yesterday as the main antagonist in the story:

DETROIT (AP) — The student who stared and smiled at an elderly Native American protester drumming in his face outside the Lincoln Memorial as his schoolmates chanted and laughed says he did nothing to provoke the man in the videotaped confrontation and was only trying to calm the situation.

The student identified himself in an email statement Sunday evening as junior Nick Sandmann of Covington Catholic High School in a northern Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati. An official working with the family confirmed Sandmann’s identity, speaking on condition of anonymity because the source didn’t want to distract from the statement.

“Detroit AP” – I thought this story happened in Washington DC? The kids are from Kentucky. My US geography might not be as good as Obama 57 States, but Detroit doesn’t seem to be anywhere near either of those. Let’s continue deconstructing: “student identified himself in an email statement” – that doesn’t sound like the AP actually reached out. The story notes some input from Kentucky based people, nothing indicates that any AP journalist was anywhere near this event.

Both Sandmann and Nathan Phillips say they were trying to defuse tensions that were rising among three groups on a day Washington hosted both the March for Life and the Indigenous Peoples March. But video of Sandmann standing very close to Phillips, staring and at times smiling at him as Phillips sang and played a drum, gave many who watched it a different impression. Other students appeared to be laughing at the drummer; and at least one could be seen on video doing a tomahawk chop.

“Both Sandmann and Nathan Phillips say …. BUT video …”: we’ll tell you the story we told yesterday, but then we’ll sheepishly acknowledge that there is more video than we chose to report which “gave many who watched it a different impression”. Oh. I see now.

The dueling accounts emerged Sunday as the nation picked apart footage from dozens of cellphones that recorded the incident on Friday in Washington amid an increasingly divided political climate fueled by a partial government shutdown over immigration policy.

“Duelling accounts” is a favourite way of introducing new “facts” that contradict their earlier story while they try to squeeze in a completely irrelevant reference to Trump I guess.

Videos show members of the religious group yelling disparaging and profane insults at the students, who taunt them in return. Video also shows the Native Americans being insulted by the small religious group.

Sandmann wrote that the students were called “racists,” ″bigots,” ″white crackers” and “incest kids” by the third group. He said a teacher chaperone gave the students permission to begin their school chants “to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group.”

This leaves out significantly worse material that was being thrown at the kids by the racists hate group, Black Hebrews including some pretty nasty anti-gay slurs. And the reaction from these Catholic schoolboys? Gasps and push back because they Catholic kids are clearly not homophobic. None of which makes this AP account.

One of those chants, however, is what led Phillips and Marcus Frejo, a member of the Pawnee and Seminole tribes, to approach the youths.

It was a haka — a war dance of New Zealand’s indigenous Maori culture, made famous by the country’s national rugby team. Frejo, who is also known as Chief Quese Imc, told the AP in a phone interview that he felt the students were mocking the dance.

This bit is flat out weird. Indigenous peoples do not treat other indigenous peoples’ traditions as a smorgasbord from which to pull an “indigenous activity” from. Why are self described Native Americans using a New Zealand Maori “haka” in Washington DC? Don’t they have their own indigenous dances? This is a huge red flag. Upon further reading through the confusing copy in the AP piece it may be that Frejo is claiming the Covington boys were doing a Haka. If they were, I haven’t seen video of it. The point however stands: what does a Haka have to do with Native Americans? Why would Frejo get upset if others performed it? The New Zealand All Blacks rugby team is not all Maori: non Maoris perform the Haka.

The M5M’s hate generating story has collapsed. Those who try to say the MAGA hat itself is a provocative symbol are relying on stories exactly like this before it started to be corrected. If you rely on almost any mainstream source for information on Trump or Israel, you’ll be proved wrong time and again.

If you derive value from my work, please consider donating some value my way. You can find all the details on the donation page.