Fake news or lousy journalism? CBS Radio reverses races of torturers, victim in Chicago kidnapping

Fake news or lousy journalism? CBS Radio reverses races of torturers, victim in Chicago kidnapping
Image: Chicago Police Department

Liberals get their pick on this. Was a newsreader on CBS Radio News deliberately attempting to deceive listeners by strongly implying that the victim in the Chicago assault on a mentally challenged man was black and that his assailants were white? Or does the guy just stink at his job? It can’t be both.

Here via Mediaite is an audio recording of the broadcast, which went out on the air last Thursday morning. The transcript follows:

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?


The viral video of a beating and knife attack in Chicago suggests the assault had racial overtones. CBS’s Dean Reynolds tells us the victim is described as a mentally challenged teenager.

In the video he is choked and repeatedly called the n-word. His clothes are slashed and he is terrorized with a knife. His alleged captors repeatedly reference Donald Trump. Police are holding four people in connection with the attack.

It’s frankly hard to see this account as anything other than intentionally misleading, although it is technically accurate. The sentence “he is … repeatedly called the n-word” paints a vivid picture in the listener’s mind of a hapless black soul called racial slurs by his heartless white captors, who outnumber him. Similarly, the mention of “repeated references to Donald Trump” omits altogether the much-needed context: The four thugs forced their victim at knife point to repeat the words “F*ck Donald Trump.” An even greater sin of omission is CBS’s failure to report the fact that the victim was also made to repeat the words “F*ck white people.”

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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