On Thursday night, MSNBC reporter Ali Veshi was filmed standing in front of a ow of stores in Minneapolis that were engulfed in flames. “I wanna be clear on how I characterize this,” he told viewers. “This is mostly a protest, it is not, it is not, generally speaking, unruly.” Shorter Ali Veshi: Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes.
The choice of backdrops for the segment was an interesting. If its purpose was to convince viewers that the rumors of violence and mayhem they had been hearing about were fictitious, wouldn’t it have made more sense for the crew to film Veshi in front of a quiet crowd scene?
CNN faced a similar situation on Thursday when dealing with police reports of looting at a high-end mall in a suburb of Atlanta. In this case the network chose not to send a camera crew since what they would have encountered runs counter to the Left’s preferred narrative about the riots.
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That is not to say the events were captured on video and published on Twitter. Have a look:
Looters in Atlanta have now broken into one of the most expensive malls in all of America.
Make no mistake, this has absolutely nothing to do with George Floyd’s death or justice. pic.twitter.com/DZhEf7JUR3
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) May 30, 2020
So how did CNN deal with the story in print? First, they titled their piece “Suspected looting at luxury Atlanta shopping mall.” Suspected? I dunno. If you watch the footage, there is little doubt that looting was the sole purpose of the “protesters.” Next, the network kept the piece short, limiting it to 71 words. Finally, they reinforced the headline by quoting Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos as saying that it “sounds like there is some vandalism and looting.” Was the sound he was referring to that of breaking glass?
