The main commentator on the Chauvin trial at Legal Insurrection, Andrew Branca, had some great commentary on the topic of media malpractice in his Day Six summary:
“STATE’S WITNESS: DR. BRADFORD WANKHEDE LANGENFELD
The day started with the testimony of Dr. Bradford Wankhede Langenfeld, who was the emergency room physician who treated Floyd upon arrival at Hennepin County Medical Center, delivered by ambulance by paramedic Derek Smith and driver.
The testimony of Dr. Langenfeld has followed what has become a common pattern in this case. The (carefully prepared?) state’s witness is carefully questioned by the state to illicit headline worthy quotes, but it’s ultimately revealed on cross-examination that those quoted opinions were based on extremely limited information, lacked context of the full circumstances, and were gutted on cross-examination as a result.
This pattern actually raises a very interesting, and alarming, public policy danger, based on the media’s coverage of this case. From what I’ve seen of media coverage, which for me occurs only when the case recesses during the day and the talking heads pop up during the break, is that the media effectively only covers the direct questioning of the state’s witnesses. As a result, the public only hears the state’s version of the facts.
Well, just like if you only hear one side of any argument, it’s natural for the public to conclude that the state is KILLING IT!!!! in this trial, and that it’s SUPER OBVIOUS!!!! that Chauvin is a RACIST POLICE MURDERER!!!! You NAZI!!!!
There’s a reason that our legal system is adversarial in nature, however, and that’s for the obvious reason that there’s always two sides to every story. It’s only by listening to both sides, with their individual strengths and weaknesses, that one can have an overall informed opinion about what likely happened.
The jury in this trial will get both sides, and hopefully arrive at a verdict based on both sides.
The public, especially the public willing to riot, loot, and arson (arson must be a verb by now, right?), is however hearing only the narrative of guilt in this case. That means that anything other than a guilty verdict can only come as a complete shock to their sense of justice, and therefore a complete justification of any terror they wish to bring to bear to the public generally.
And who is responsible for this? Well, the rioters, looters, and arsonists are responsible for their own conduct, for certain. It’s kind of hard to not also assign blame to the media pouring out the gasoline across the public square and sparking the matches.”
The above from here:
One key concept about the mainstream media to always keep in mind is that “they are not interested in telling the truth, the whole/all truth, or even demonstratively counter-truths to what they “report” (whether incompetently, deliberatively, by ignorance, on orders from above - Bezos, NY Times clique, LA times leaders, politicians, academics, etc).
I was a street reporter (and some time in Nam/Cambodia) for decades. I was with other “reporters” who either didn’t see what I saw though we were standing together (as at a Pentagon protest), or made excuses for the violence from the Left).
One of my best received letters was from former Asst. Dir. of the FBI Ray Wannell (Counter-Intelligence/Operation Solo), in which he thanks me for “being the only journalist to accurately quote him.”
.
We had a good laugh about the event I wrote about and quoted him in it.
The same for a NY Times reporter in So. Vietnam, who was one of 5 of use MACV-accredited journalists who visited the same Delta town in the same week. Four of us wrote about positive changes that had happened there when the So. Vietnamese troops/govt admin. regained control of it. We interviewed the people who had lived there all their lives, under French, Communist, and So. Vietnamese control.
You just have to ask the right question if you really want the people to speak the truth to you with confidence that you will report it honestly.
The same goes for communist street demonstrations and riots in the DC area being characterized as just a bunch of “protestors” despite communist signs identifying themselves.
The concept that the mainstream media has any journalistic ethic to report the “truth” as best they can was long ago flushed down the cesspool of Leftism, with journalism schools providing the toilet paper, i.e. students.