“Doctored” Videos and Media Hypocrisy

The fact that the progressive media machine routinely engages in deceptive reporting designed to further a leftist agenda is taken for granted by normal folks. It is the reason why the public has lost no small level of trust in the Fourth Estate.

One would think that the press would change their ways in response to the bevy of criticisms leveled at them, but it appears their lack of self-awareness is so strong, they simply cannot grasp the notion that the public no longer views them credible or honest. It is this self-awareness deficit that caused the media to lash out at President Trump for posting a video depicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stumbling over her words during a press conference.

“PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE” pic.twitter.com/1OyCyqRTuk

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2019

True to form, members of the media elite tore their robes, clutched their pearls, and gnashed their teeth as they lambasted the president for daring to post a humorous video poking fun at Speaker Pelosi. Both MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace and CNN’s Anderson Cooper railed against Trump for the tweet. Cooper slammed him for casting the “third most powerful person in the country” in such a negative light. The Los Angeles Times’ Jon Healey wrote an opinion piece calling out Facebook for refusing to take the video down.

The issue? The video was supposedly doctored. This claim has already been debunked by Brandon Morse, but it is clear that the video was edited in a way that made fun of the Speaker. But the progressive left responded as they always do: with deception. They pretended that the video was deliberately designed to mislead the public into believing Pelosi was channeling Porky Pig in her press conference.

Yes, there are people out there who lack the gene required to understand humor and satire, but the majority of Americans can clearly see the video is a joke. But this isn’t the real issue. The actual issue is the brazen hypocrisy displayed by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the networks, who have used deceptively edited videos to attack President Trump and his supporters.

Remember the “fine people” hoax in which Trump supposedly complimented Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, VA? During the press conference, the president said there were “fine people” on both sides, then seconds later, he said, “I’m not talking about the Neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, those people should be condemned totally.”

The problem is that the media continually played the first part of Trump’s comments while cutting off the section where he clearly excludes the racists present at the rally. This small tweak likely convinced millions of Americans that the president said nice things about white supremacists. But that’s not all.

You might also recall the Covington kids fiasco in February in which high school children touring Washington, D.C.were painted as racists due to a partial video clip that appeared to show them harassing a Native American activist. Confession time: The media’s propaganda game was so on point, even I fell for it at first, and debunking these types of stories is my job!

The initial video — which only showed one moment during the encounter — showed the kids chanting with activist Nathan Philips as the activist pounded his drum close to the face of Nicholas Sandmann, one of the students in attendance. The way the video was edited gave the impression that the kids were confronting Philips, but the opposite was true.

After the full video made its way on to social media, viewers could see that it was the Black Hebrew Israelites who started the altercation by hurling racial and homophobic slurs at the kids before Philips approached the group and began banging his drum. Of course, it’s worth mentioning that not all of the kids were squeaky clean; some were seen making the tomahawk sign; mocking Philips’ heritage.

But the majority of the group were not engaging in the behavior indicated by news reports. Indeed, as more information emerged, it became clear that the Fourth Estate was again engaging in deceptive reporting to push the idea that anyone who dares to wear a MAGA hat is the spawn of Satan.

In 2016, CNN deceptively edited a video depicting the police shooting of Keith Scott, a black male. The edited video leaves out the part of the incident where officers repeatedly tell Scott to drop his gun and makes it appear as if they shot an unarmed man.

The full video shows the officers trying to convince Scott to drop his gun, which the authorities recovered after the shooting. Again, one small tweak had a tremendous impact. The video helped to ignite the Charlotte riots in protest of the shooting and other incidents involving police brutality. People were hurt because CNN deliberately misled the residents of the city to push a narrative.

But these are not the only examples, and in many cases, news outlets don’t need to doctor videos to deceive their audiences. Indeed, much of the reporting done by progressive journalists are designed to mislead and influence the public to the left’s way of thinking. The video Trump tweeted was clearly meant to be humorous, but even if some believe it to be real, it won’t have any lasting damage on society.

On the other hand, the media caused a riot in the city of Charlotte. Their lies about the president’s fictional support for white supremacy has inspired violence against people simply for wearing MAGA hats or otherwise expressing their support for Trump.

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Connect with me on Twitter @JeffOnTheRight

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Source: https://www.redstate.com/diary/JeffC/2019/05/26/doctored-videos-media-hypocrisy/