Tuesday, January 22, 2019

more coverage of the Covington blowup

It's been a great week for fake news, what with the media's having tripped over its own dick regarding the false BuzzFeed news story about Michael Cohen's claim that Donald Trump told him to lie to Congress—news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller himself, head of the Trump-Russia probe, broke his relative silence to refute. Now, with the Covington Catholic High School incident continuing to dominate the news cycle (well, at least the alt-media news cycle), we have even more opinions on the matter pouring in.

Here's Paul Joseph Watson on the supposedly harassed Native American, the smirking white student, and the Black Hebrew Israelites:


Here's Jon Miller's take:


Miller writes in his video's blurb:

It didn’t matter who instigated the incident between the Covington Catholic high schoolers and the Indian [drummer because] the MSM had a narrative to push. They had NO interest in finding out the truth or getting the students’ perspective. Instead, they were more focused [on] demonizing Trump supporters based on nothing more than the color of their skin.

That was the case for both the Covington flap and the above-mentioned Cohen flap: the narrative always comes first, then you fit your "facts" to the narrative. Were it not for alt media, there would be no journalism. Styx points out that the high schoolers at the center of this incident, and their families, have lawyered up and might be going after some news organizations for their sloppy, slanted, defamatory reporting. Well, good. I support freedom of the press, but that doesn't mean I support the freedom to lie and spin with impunity. Someone needs to hold these bastards accountable for their constant Baghdad Bob-ing.

Here's Styx:


Meanwhile, there are some juicy posts over at Instapundit, where they're tearing into this latest fake-news snafu with vigor. See especially here, here, here, here ("Sue the bastards!"), and here (Trump weighs in, gaffes and all).

And this satirical article's title puts the matter well:

Press That Sicced Mob On Teenagers Based On 10-Second Video Clip Unsure Why Some People Call Them ‘Fake News.’

It's frustrating, the extent to which the PoMo mentality has taken over public discourse. We can't talk about truth anymore; it's all narratives now. Based on the work I did in religious studies, the term "narrative" holds a sacred place in my consciousness, but the term is being defiled in how it gets used these days, just as the word "myth" is tossed around sloppily, with no respect for its academic meaning. Anyway, this is the discursive reality we live in now, and to fight a toxic narrative, we need to weave an equally powerful counter-narrative. It's like what Messala said in 1959's "Ben Hur": to fight an idea, you need another idea.



1 comment:

John Mac said...

It's f'n insane what they tried to do to those kids. And I ain't seeing many apologies from the racists who wanted to lynch someone because of the color of his skin (well, he was wearing a hood--I mean MAGA hat).

As Instapundit is wont to say: Orwell's 1984 was not intended to be a "how to" guide.