(01-28-2019, 01:04 PM)hollodero Wrote: Yeah that's certainly somewhat true. But I can't just blame the media for people letting themselves getting all worked up over ridiculous media stories. They are a symptom. They just do what works with the audience.
Why it works is the issue. Why really every complete non-story can be the signal to run for the hills and shoot at the other side. How American's political affiliation is coupled with so much self-righteousness and so much desire for partisan talking points to throw into fruitless quarrels over literally nothing is astonishing. You really do the Russian troll factories' work for them.

This whole debate just is amazingly bizarre.

(01-28-2019, 01:40 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Especially when compared to the party that is getting no hate from the Left media.

(01-28-2019, 01:48 PM)bfine32 Wrote: No doubt. Stories about the black Hebrews have flooded the media. Isn't it noble to hate, hate?

(01-28-2019, 02:29 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Sorry, but I have in ide what you are saying?

Are you saying that no "Left media" have reported on the Hebrews?  If so then your statement is based on your ignorance of what any media other than the right wing echo chamber presents.  There have been plenty of stories all over the media about the Hebrews.  

Are you saying the left media should have been more or less critical of the Hebrews.  It seems at first you were concerned that they were not being critical, but next you seem to claim that it would be ignoble to be critical of them.

If you were running a media outlet what would you have said about the kids, the Hebrews, and the Native?  We already know you believe the kids did nothing wrong, but what would you report about the others involved?

(01-28-2019, 02:37 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I have no doubt that you have no idea what I'm saying, but the media "went after" these kids and it was because they were white and wearing red hats.

(01-28-2019, 02:37 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I'm saying the biggest story that came out of that encounter was not the hate spewed by the Black Hebrews. Not only did the media make the story these racist kids in MAGA hats; they also fabricated other stories such as "Black Face" at their schools simply because kids painted their bodies black in a "black out" night, flashing White Supremacists  signs when the team made a 3 point shot.

I have no doubt that you have no idea what I'm saying, but the media "went after" these kids and it was because they were white and wearing red hats.

(01-28-2019, 03:38 PM)Dill Wrote: Do you think the media will "go after" ANY white kid wearing a red hat, or will they narrow it down to the totally innocent ones wearing MAGA hats while throwing tomahawk chops and chanting "build the wall" at a Native American?

(01-28-2019, 03:38 PM)Dill Wrote: Do you think the media will "go after" ANY white kid wearing a red hat, or will they narrow it down to the totally innocent ones wearing MAGA hats while throwing tomahawk chops and chanting "build the wall" at a Native American?

(01-28-2019, 04:46 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Link to them chanting "Build the wall".

WTS. They will go after anything that will build subscriptions.  They just know that hate for Trump and his supporters is high right now. So they'll give them red beef every chance they get.

(01-28-2019, 03:50 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Reminds me of a  column I just read about selecting the most extreme cases.  Granted it was a rather laughable column, but some people thought it had merit.

(01-28-2019, 05:40 PM)Dill Wrote: Molly Roberts take on the Covington HS video is also interesting.

Everyone is still getting the Covington story wrong
https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-opinions/2019/01/23/everyone-is-still-getting-the-covington-story-wrong/

The latest wisdom on Covington Catholic only swaps one neatly spun narrative for another. The original story was about how the racist, ignorant superiority that undergirds the Trumpist ideology could move privileged white teenagers to chant "Build the wall," as Phillips said they did, at someone whose ancestors were here long before theirs. The story now is about how the hyper-polarization of today's society can move right-thinking Americans to condemn those who do not deserve it.

The first version was concocted by progressives of influence, perhaps with the help of some inauthentic internet actors, and amplified by news outlets that aired that initial damning video. The second comes from a fancy PR firm with Republican links that was hired to defend the Covington crew. This version, too, has been catapulted to prominence by some of those same outlets, eager to correct what the country suddenly sees as a massive mistake.

The problem is, neither of these distillations captures the truth, which is hidden somewhere in a mess of different segments of different recordings showing different offenses by different parties. It's true that the Hebrew Israelites shouted invective at the kids, and it is true that the kids chanted school cheers to drown them out. It's also true that the schoolboys, whether someone else was mean to them beforehand or not, were giggling as they let loose with offensive war whoops and tomahawk chops while a Native American man beat his drum before them. It's true that one of them ripped his shirt off in a signal of self-assured dominance. And it's true that a smirk is a smirk.

Most important, it's true that context demands more than watching a single event from all possible angles. It also means understanding the world where the event happened. Anyone who wears a Make America Great Again hat knows what it stands for, and who it stands against. Anyone with an understanding of American history knows that white people have long made excuses for other white people's racist behavior - protecting their own as a method of protecting themselves. There's a sense that outright condemnation often misses some essential reality. But sometimes, instead, condemning what is genuinely condemnable is the most real thing one can do.

The quarrel over the Covington teens is not only a story of social media hate-mobbing. It’s also a story of the groupthinking tendency to hop off a bandwagon as unthinkingly as we hop onto it. More important, it’s a story of our desire to make every cultural controversy fit into a framework that tells some distillable truth about the state of our country today. Any actual truth about the rifts running through America right now can’t be cleanly distilled. That’s a harder story to tell - which might be why so few are trying.

(01-28-2019, 06:00 PM)michaelsean Wrote: What makes this interesting?  Your first article bemoans that one time pariahs became heroes without referring to the horrendous reporting that made them pariahs.

This one is interesting only if you haven't heard a liberal speak in the last twenty-five years.  

(01-28-2019, 06:00 PM)michaelsean Wrote: What makes this interesting?  Your first article bemoans that one time pariahs became heroes without referring to the horrendous reporting that made them pariahs.

This one is interesting only if you haven't heard a liberal speak in the last twenty-five years.  

(01-28-2019, 01:15 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I disagree.  If a preacher had walked up to this group of boys and started praying while the boys jeered and mocked his religious beliefs people would treat it much differently.  Many of the people claiming that the boys did nothing wrong would be outraged at them mocking and jeering the popular Christian religion.

(01-28-2019, 07:34 PM)Beaker Wrote: Outrage, or lack of it doesn't equal privilege.

(01-28-2019, 01:20 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Because of the hat they were wearing.

(01-28-2019, 09:04 PM)hollodero Wrote: Yes, of course that is true. It's still uninteresting as hell, but without the hat they wouldn't call it a story, but an everyday event no one needs to know about. Rightfully so.
It's also not the whole truth behind it. The whole truth is escalation. One bunch hates on the boy, two bunches then are fake outraged about that fake outrage and defend the boy, hate on the drummer instead... then three bunches... and in the end, everyone is rallied up and it really matters no single bit who started it. That usually alternates anyway.

I find it comical though how you don't seem to notice you're equally taking part in this ridiculous escalation like those you blame.

(01-28-2019, 06:40 PM)Dill Wrote: Perhaps Wilson assumed everyone was familiar with the "horrendous reporting." His focus was on the response, the quickly coordinating right-wing media reaction, which he tracks. 

For me what makes both articles interesting is that they step back and examine what happens in the back and forth between different media camps.

Both agree that there was indeed something loathsome about the behavior of the boys, whether the Hebrew Israelites are in the picture or not.  People who are not Trump supporters understandably condemn the behavior in the first version of events, but fringe elements (including celebrities) run right into doxxing and other equally condemnable behavior. 

Then a right wing counter-campaign turns the rowdies into choir boys who have been framed by the bad leftist media eager to "hate"--some of whom too quickly apologize when they see the extreme threats to the boys, AGAIN without trying to understand something of the larger media-political context in which they are operating.  Elements of the "liberal" media react without thinking--twice.

I notice others, mostly "liberals," are taking this more critical/analytic high road as well.

How the Media Turned the MAGA Teens Into Martyrs
https://www.theringer.com/2019/1/24/18196049/covington-catholic-lincoln-memorial-nathan-phillips

The Covington controversy might have come and gone as a parable about “fake news,” “media bias,” “outrage culture,” “tribalism,” “online bullying,” and all the other buzzwords that resonate in the MAGA moment. But now it lingers as a conservative cause célèbre. (Mercifully, the Covington controversy has cured the right’s week-long outrage about a Gillette commercial.) The White House is providing daily statements. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump tweeted: “Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be. They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good—maybe even to bring people together.” They have indeed united the right. Sandmann, in particular, has stood his ground in the press as defiantly as he seemed to stand in Phillips’s face. Sandmann and his family have mounted a public relations campaign to absolve the teen and to further endear him to conservatives who have quickly come to regard him as a folk hero in the general struggle against liberal media biases. Sandmann’s martyrdom is an ironic if predictable twist: Right-wing media spent a year clowning and doubting school shooting survivors only to canonize some intrepid teenagers who survived wearing MAGA hats while visiting Trump’s Washington. “The media” has eagerly—foolishly—enhanced Sandmann’s right-wing regard. The two parties in this argument have kept one crucial perception in common. They look at Nicholas Sandmann, and they see Brett Kavanaugh. They look at Covington Catholic, and they see Georgetown Prep. They look at the MAGA hats, and they see red.

Several tangential arguments have since emerged: The students were wearing MAGA hats, which are, inherently, offensive. If Sandmann and the other MAGA teens hadn’t been wearing those red alarms, the Covington media fiasco never would have happened. The MAGA teens may have been misunderstood, but they’re also unconditionally protected by their visible allegiance to Trump and his tribe. The teens behaved poorly; the Black Hebrew Israelites even worse. But “the media” behaved worst of all, having compounded so many ambiguities and then having the nerve to call these revisions a clarification.

Finally, then, what makes all three articles interesting for me, beyond pushback against the "boys-were-doing-nothing-wrong" revision, is their calling attention to how quick-draw news reporting feeds the Trump-directed "fake news" narrative, which in turn has been so effective in undermining institutions required for functioning democracy, feeding as it does on chaos and division.

(01-28-2019, 03:00 PM)fredtoast Wrote: They went after them because the original video looked very bad.

The kid could have been a poster buy for how to make a smug smart-ass smile while his friends carried on with offensive chants and actions.

But ,most of the same media has reported on both sides of the story now that other information has surfaced.

(01-28-2019, 08:16 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Sure it does.  It is a privilege to get away with doing something when someone else draws outrage for doing the same thing.