Here's CNN's Jake Tapper Backpeddling as Fast as He Can from Fake Hate Story His Network Stoked
January 20th, 2019 just might be remembered as the day the mainstream media died.
Over the weekend, leftist media outlets tripped over themselves to report a supposedly “disturbing” incident that happened in the nation’s capital. To hear the talking heads tell it, a group of hateful Trump supporters sought out and then harassed an innocent Native American man.
The reality, it turns out, was very different. After many prominent media organizations breathlessly pushed the story, dozens of other videos emerged showing that it was almost completely wrong.
Those videos confirm what the pro-Trump students insisted: They were harassed by an unrelated radical group hurling racial and homophobic slurs, but actually tried to distance themselves from that bigotry.
Then, the now-famous Native American man purposely moved toward the group, getting into at least one student’s face as that teenager did his best to stay calm.
You’d think the media would have learned by now to wait, oh, maybe half a second for facts to come out before smearing somebody. But no.
Then we get A LIBERAL calling for the KIDS to be SHOVED in a WOODCHIPPER!
—> @Jack_Morrissey <– pic.twitter.com/NbPs8nm2MX
— Lord God King Boo-fuu (@lordgodbufuu) January 21, 2019
As verified “tolerant” liberals on Twitter openly called for the children to be assaulted or burned alive — that’s not an exaggeration — the establishment media continued to push the fake story even as it unraveled.
Can someone explain to me why a verified twitter account that is inciting arson and violence against minors hasn’t been suspended? @tedcruz @RepMattGaetz pic.twitter.com/6EzLdnHP2Y
— Mike Cernovich 🦍🇺🇸 (@Cernovich) January 21, 2019
Now, CNN pundit Jake Tapper is backpedaling as fast as he can, but still can’t seem to bring himself to just admit he stepped in the mess.
On Sunday, Tapper took a passive-aggressive stance by posting an article by the libertarian Reason Magazine, which smartly broke down exactly what happened based on numerous videos.
.@reason: “Video footage strongly contradicts Native American veteran Nathan Phillips’ claim that Covington Catholic High School boys harassed him. The media got this one completely wrong,” writes @robbysoave https://t.co/9Ki4iiTkQ9
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 20, 2019
The end result, as the Reason piece astutely described, is that the high schoolers involved in the rally don’t appear to have done anything wrong, unless peacefully participating in a rally and smiling is now illegal.
“Video footage strongly contradicts Native American veteran Nathan Phillips’ claim that Covington Catholic High School boys harassed him. The media got this one completely wrong,” that article explained. Tapper sheepishly posted that conclusion in quotes, attributing it journalist Robby Soave but adding nothing of his own.
As of Monday afternoon, neither Tapper or other prominent CNN personalities had actually admitted that their news organization jumped the gun and fired up a mob which then threatened the futures and lives of young kids.
We have to give Tapper at least slight credit for posting the Reason article disproving the media’s own narrative, but it may have been too little, too late. There is something very spineless about trying to hedge one’s bets by posting another outlet’s conclusions while refusing to personally speak the truth.
In the end, establishment media types seem to be trying to weasel away from a story they royally botched without being held responsible for their shockingly irresponsible rush to judgement. That’s not good journalism, and it’s not honesty.
The entire media’s handling of this incident and now the reluctance of journalists to just step up and own their mistakes is exactly why people are turning off the news channels in droves.
Hatred and calls for violence from the left have been exposed in plain sight, and the media has once again been shown to be complicit in the spreading of harmful lies. It’s time to walk away from modern liberalism, and walk away from media gatekeepers, too. They have lost America’s trust.
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