I wouldn’t hammer away at the media if we didn’t so desperately need them. If we could ignore them or do without them, there wouldn’t be much reason to get angry. But a recent Patterico post reminded me of how long they’ve been performing so poorly.
Here is a representative quote from Cannon, a longtime Washington Post reporter, about the first few seconds of video (edited out by most stations) showing King violently resisting:
[I]t explains why the jurors in Simi Valley, who were from a very pro-police, conservative community, ruled the way they did. They thought that the media hadn’t told them the full story, and lo and behold, we hadn’t.Right. And the media’s lack of explanation of the whole picture helped spark the riots, as Cannon explains in his book.
For more insight, here is a good account of the event and trials. I watched a 2-hour Court TV special on the Simi Valley trial, and I think this account is very accurate — and something most people are unfamiliar with.
What were the consequences of this particular episode of media malfeasance? 54 dead, 2,000 injured and a city tearing itself apart before the world.
I don’t want a system where the government regulates the media. We, the people need to start holding the media accountable for “narrative” agenda-driven reporting.
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