The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot - Glenn Greenwald

The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot - Glenn Greenwald

• Insisting on factual accuracy does not make one an apologist for the protesters. 
• False reporting is never justified, especially to inflate threat and fear levels.

"...There is no circumstance or motive that justifies the dissemination of false claims by journalists. 

...Yet this is exactly what has happened, and continues to happen, since that riot almost seven weeks ago. And anyone who tries to correct these falsehoods is instantly attacked with the cynical accusation that if you want only truthful reporting about what happened, then you’re trying to “minimize” what happened and are likely an apologist for if not a full-fledged supporter of the protesters themselves.

• One of the most significant of these falsehoods was the tale — endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month — that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. 

That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8 in an article headlined “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.” 

It cited “two [anonymous] law enforcement officials” to claim that Sicknick died “with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress” and after he “was struck with a fire extinguisher.”

A second New York Times article from later that day — bearing the more dramatic headline: “He Dreamed of Being a Police Officer, Then Was Killed by a Pro-Trump Mob” — elaborated on that story...Read all.