The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and much of the mainstream media just got badly burned in their rush to report apparent hate crimes on the campus of Beloit College in Wisconsin.
There was plenty of overheated coverage this week of what turned out to be yet another bogus – as has too often been the case in this era of knee-jerk journalism.
On Monday, news outlets across Wisconsin – and the nation – posted the story that “two Beloit students in residence halls were targets of hate crimes.”
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Beloit College officials first reported that an anti-Semitic note was placed under a student’s door last Friday. Early Monday morning, an anti-Muslim threat was found spray-painted on another student’s residence hall door, and a swastika on a nearby wall.
Beloit security reportedly discovered the words, “Die,” “Sand n*gger go home,” and #Muslimban in red paint on the student’s door on the second floor of the college’s Bushnell Hall.
Before police had identified any suspects, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel seemed to have one in mind: President Donald Trump. A staff reporter somberly wrote:
The anti-Muslim threat comes as chaos continues to build around the country over President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
The implication, essentially the same as the overt accusation from the Left, is that Trump and his executive orders are stirring up mass racism and violence in America. Once again, an alleged hate crime disappeared in the face of facts, and the mainstream media were left holding their bag of bias.
On Wednesday, another Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter was forced to report:
A Beloit College student admitted fabricating an incident in which a swastika, anti-Muslim and ethnic and racial slurs were spray-painted on a dorm room door and a nearby wall.
Twenty-year-old Beloit student Michael Kee confessed to spray-painting the racial slurs. Kee, who originally reported the incident to police, was arrested on charges of obstruction, disorderly conduct, and criminal damage. He allegedly told authorities he saw the way the campus community came together after the first reported hate crime incident and wanted in on that action.
So did the mainstream media, chomping at the bit to report on an act of “racism and intolerance” in the Trump era.
Just as it did in the case of the 18-year-old Muslim woman who made up a story about being attacked in December by three white men screaming “Donald Trump!” on a Manhattan subway. Just as it did in covering the phony story of a University of Michigan female student who falsely claimed she was attacked by a white man who threatened he would set her on fire if she did not remove her hijab. And in the case of the openly bisexual senior at North Park University in Chicago, who claimed she received a homophobic note and hateful emails following Trump’s presidential election victory. False, too.
As in the Beloit College story, each of the “hate crimes” were reported with the narrative of a “rising tide” of Islamophobia, homophobia, bigotry, and intolerance ushered in by President Donald Trump.
Cross-posted from Watchdog.org/M.D. Kittle
