Waukesha: The Shame of the Media

Waukesha: The Shame of the Media
Debris litters the street at a crime scene in Waukesha, Wis., on Nov. 21, 2021. Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
Newt Gingrich
Updated:
Commentary

The willful avoidance of facts and deliberate obscuring of what happened in Waukesha, Wisconsin is a low point in American journalism nationally.

It is stunning how much the propaganda media distorted and misreported the massacre at the Christmas parade last week.

Here are the facts: The alleged killer, Darrell Brooks Jr., is an African American who was previously released from jail on an “inappropriately low bail” after reportedly running over the mother of his child with a car. He has openly talked about using a vehicle to kill people and posted anti-white racism on social media. On Nov. 21, he reportedly used his car to murder six people and maim more than 60 others (including children and senior citizens).

These horrendous facts apparently violate the established media’s narrative of inherent white racism and black victimization.

The propaganda media’s answer has been to simply avoid the facts and focus on reporting which can at best be described as inadequate and at worst be described as maliciously dishonest and misleading.

The amazing thing is that this was not the work of one or two news outlets. Consider this deafening repetition of false and misleading headlines:

Read these headlines and ask yourself: Was this a crash or an intentionally malicious act of violence? Did the SUV drive into the crowd and murder or maim people, or did the person driving it? Is that person a “crash suspect” or a suspected mass murderer?

The propaganda media (as the mouthpiece of the left) seems on the verge of calling for SUV control akin to gun control. The SUV only did what its homicidal driver wanted it to do. But recognizing that the driver is an African American with a criminal history who spouts racism on social media appears politically unacceptable. Saying so would have destroyed years of carefully convincing people of the left’s vision of a “systemically racist” white America preying upon innocent African American victims.

The headlines were just the start. News outlets also took to Twitter.

HAPPENING NOW: The man accused of deadly Christmas parade crash in Waukesha, WI makes his first court appearance” (CBS News, Nov. 23)
Waukesha will hold a moment of silence today, marking one week since a car drove through a city Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring scores of others.” Here, on Nov. 28, CNN asserted that “a car” drove through the parade as though it weren’t being driven by a person.

Similarly, The Washington Post withdrew a tweet after it absurdly posted, “Here’s what we know so far on the sequence of events that led to the Waukesha tragedy caused by a SUV.” Again, the newspaper suggested this “tragedy”—not mass murder or a massacre—was “caused by a SUV.” It can’t be an individual held to account, because that violates the spirit of collective guilt and societal causation at the heart of the left’s worldview.

On television, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow spent an entire segment on the horrific attack without mentioning Brooks once. She only referred to him as “the suspect.” MSNBC didn’t put his mugshot on screen during the segment.

On the day of the attack, Maddow reported, “A red SUV inexplicably sped into the parade route and then directly into people marching in the parade and people watching on the sidewalk.”

Note, she said, “inexplicably sped into the parade route.” What a lie. The vehicle was deliberately driven at a high speed by a man who had recently used a car to attack someone. Of course, that is a narrative Maddow could never accept.

Only after all the national false coverage, the truth began to come out in local media.

On Nov. 30, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote: “Darrell Brooks Jr., the driver accused in the Waukesha Christmas Parade massacre, is charged with sixth count of first-degree homicide.”

This is a disgraceful act of deliberate false reporting and misinformation by the national media to protect a political ideology.

The journalists involved should be ashamed of themselves.

The American people should remember this effort to misinform them and protect the narrative of the left at the expense of the truth, respect for the victims, and justice for their families and loved ones.

From Gingrich360.com
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich
Author
Newt Gingrich is an author, commentator, and former Georgia congressman who was the 50th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He ran as a presidential Republican candidate in 2012.
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