By Kyle Smith
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
‘If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” This
sound advice, handed down by generations of crusty newspaper editors with
unkempt hair and mustard stains on their ties, used to serve reporters well. At
the City News Bureau of Chicago, which for decades steered coverage for area
reporters, the legend appeared on a huge sign posted on the wall.
The place closed in 1999. Too bad. A whole generation of
reporters has grown up since then, and many of them seem not to understand the
difference between journalism and activism. I say this on a kind of anti-holiday
for the news media. It’s January 29: one year ago, Jussie Smollett went to the
police with a dumb story about MAGA ruffians patrolling the pre-dawn streets of
Chicago wielding nooses in case there were any gay black television actors on
the streets after midnight on a frigid night. The New York Times, CNN,
ABC News, the Washington Post, CBS News and NBC News all ran false
assertions. These statements are in most cases still uncorrected on the
respective Web sites.
CNN: “‘Empire’ star Jussie Smollett attacked in possible
hate crime.” False. The underlying story asserts flatly, “‘Empire’ actor Jussie
Smollett was attacked in the early morning hours on Tuesday.” Not true. In type
so tiny it could easily be missed, CNN appended, “Editor’s note: Read an update
here,” which links to a story three months later describing how Smollett’s
version of events fell apart.
Good Morning America: “’Empire’ star Jussie
Smollett brutally attacked, hospitalized in possible hate crime.” Hospitalized?
Getting treated at a hospital you took yourself to is not the same thing as
being admitted to one. False and false. The story remains uncorrected.
The New York Times: “Jussie Smollett, Star of
‘Empire,’ Attacked in What Police Call a Possible Hate Crime.” Wrong. The story
remains uncorrected. The underlying article by Sopan Deb says, “Jussie
Smollett, one of the stars of the Fox television show ‘Empire,’ was attacked in
Chicago early Tuesday morning by two people who yelled racial and homophobic
slurs and wrapped a rope around his neck, according to the police . . .” But
the police could not have known this. They were not present. They were simply
relating what Smollett said. Reporters should understand such distinctions.
Police also noted on that first day that Smollett had not
initially told them his attackers shouted, “This is MAGA country,” a detail
that his camp instead gave to TMZ. When police heard about that, they contacted
Smollett again, at which point he passed along that detail. Why would he have
left out the seemingly crucial possible motive for this otherwise unexplained
assault? “Sources directly connected to Jussie” also told TMZ his assailants
“poured bleach on him” but Smollett told police the liquid poured on him was an
unknown chemical substance. The same sources told TMZ his attackers were white
men, but Smollett told police he could not identify the race of his supposed
attackers. Aren’t reporters supposed to be skeptical when the subject of a
story tells a more sensational story to the press than he does to police? This
story had more red flags than Bernie Sanders’ honeymoon.
Amusingly, the paper’s own readers had better
bushwa detectors than their staff: The first comments beneath the Times’
initial story are full of skepticism. Did the attackers pause in mid-assault to
make a noose in frigid weather? Or were they carrying a noose around with them?
Why would they do either of those things? Why would they describe Chicago as
“MAGA country”? Why didn’t Smollett call 911 right away? Why did he still have
the rope around his neck later when he talked to police? All valid questions
that occurred to Times readers but not Times editors.
Even more amusingly, the police tried, without being
insensitive, to alert reporters to be skeptical right away. Deb and his editors
completely missed it: “The police said in a statement that the area where
Smollett said the attack occurred had ‘very high density of city and private
surveillance cameras.’ Detectives had viewed hundreds of hours of video but
‘unfortunately, thus far we have not found any helpful information on a suspect
or a suspect’s vehicle to be able to share.’” Experienced, cynical reporters
(the Venn diagram here is a circle, or rather it used to be) read this and say,
“Oh, come on.” What the police were delicately indicating is that Smollett had
taken them to the spot where the assault supposedly took place and the cops
noted that a security camera was right there — pointed the other way. How
convenient! The cops must have told each other. Cops, like reporters, learn
to be very aware of the human capacity for lying.
Here’s a headline that isn’t false, from the Chicago
Tribune: “Chicago Police Investigating Report of Assault on ‘Empire’ Actor
Jussie Smollett.” Not so hard, is it? Smollett made a claim. That claim was
newsworthy. Relevant facts had yet to emerge. There was no need to state as
fact things that had yet to be established. Yet the pile-on of false reports
generated national hysteria and anguish. Nobody felt the need to await the
whole story because virtually all major news outlets had baldly stated that
Smollett had been attacked. Cory Booker tweeted, “The vicious attack on actor
Jussie Smollett was an attempted modern-day lynching.” Wrong. Kamala Harris
also called it a “modern-day lynching.” President Trump said, “That I can tell
you is horrible. It doesn’t get worse.”
The Smollett story showed that a certain kind of reporter
thinks he’s in the profession of advancing the progressive cause, which in turn
is heavily dependent on stories of American villainy by suspect groups such as
fraternity brothers (the U.VA. rape hoax), lacrosse players (the Duke rape
hoax), and military youth (the Army-Navy circle-game panic). Instead of having
a nose for bushwa, such reporters exhibit blindness for red flags. They
urgently want to believe there’s a terrible story where there is only a
ridiculous lie. Journalism comes to resemble a deranged performance of Peter
Pan in which the professionals in the spotlight urge the audience to clap
along with the make-believe. But instead of fairies, they beg the crowd to
think that America is an irredeemable land of bigotry, a sexist, homophobic
haven of rapists and racists who rampage with impunity through our most
enduring institutions and our toniest neighborhoods. A never-ending
credulousness with regard to hate crimes leads journalists to join in an
assault upon the truth fueled by a loathing of their own culture; even the most
prestigious journalistic institutions work to perpetuate hate slime.
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