The not guilty verdict on November 19 in the Kyle Rittenhouse case gave corporate media the opportunity to take a measured approach to systemic violence in the US—and for the most part, they fell short.
The jury’s finding came after more than a year of a political back and forth over the killing of two protesters and the wounding of a third during a Black Lives Matter uprising in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 25, 2020.
The trial was marked by early allegations of witness tampering and Judge Bruce Schroeder constantly interfering in the case on Rittenhouse’s behalf, including barring prosecutors from bringing up the defendant’s meetings with members of the Proud Boys and a previous fight he had been in. Though those points were raised in some media during the case, they were largely dismissed in the wake of the verdict, or portrayed as incidental to the system working. Rather, the jury’s decision was framed as a verdict that upheld the right to self defense, never mind the fact that that right tends to appear and disappear depending on whose self is in danger.
‘Justice was done’
Virginia Lt. Gov.-elect Winsome Sears (right) told Dana Bash (CNN, 11/21/21), “We ought to let the American justice system speak for itself.”
Measured, respectable right-wing voices framed the Rittenhouse decision as the result of a criminal justice system that came to the right conclusion—while feeding into the idea that the shootings were so clearly justified they made any charges a farce.
“Justice was done in that and the jury system works,” Former Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told Bret Baier on Fox News Sunday (11/21/21). “You know, I was a prosecutor for seven years, and those charges should never have been brought.”
NBC’s Meet the Press’s Twitter account (11/21/21), meanwhile, framed the verdict as part of a legal system working to uphold a very specific principle of self defense:
Kelly O’Donnell, Kristen Soltis Anderson, David Henderson and Rev. Al Sharpton join the Meet the Press roundtable to talk about the Rittenhouse verdict as “stand your ground” wins a victory in Rittenhouse trial.
On CNN (11/21/21), Republican Virginia Lieutenant Governor-elect Winsome Sears told host Dana Bash that “we ought to let the American justice system speak for itself.” ABC reporter Terry Moran (11/21/21) told that network’s Martha Raddatz that Rittenhouse had “won this case on the witness stand,” because his defense lawyer prepared a line of questioning “structured right at the Wisconsin law of self-defense”—presenting the case and the lives lost as simply part of a hard fought, but abstract, debate.
“It was not a crusade in that courtroom,” Moran added in a somberly approving tone. “It was a trial.”
Persistent grievances
“What a sweet boy,” Tucker Carlson (Fox, 11/22/21) said of Rittenhouse.
At Fox News, Tucker Carlson (11/22/21) aired an exclusive interview with Rittenhouse, and his Fox Nation show tailed the defendant through the court proceedings, enjoying unparalleled access.
Though many in right-wing media delighted in the verdict, they still found grievances to air. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) termed the disapproval expressed by President Joe Biden over the verdict an example of “cancel culture” in an appearance on Justice With Judge Jeanine (11/20/21).
Friday on Fox (11/19/21), Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro raised the possibility Rittenhouse could sue Biden for “defamation” over a September 30, 2020, tweet from last year (9/30/20) suggesting the shooter was a white supremacist.
Geraldo Rivera disagreed about Biden’s liability, but paired it with an admission that in his view, Rittenhouse had a “clear-cut case of self-defense.” The media narrative on Fox is clear: The jury’s finding cannot be questioned in this case, and the validity of the Rittenhouse defense is an established fact.
‘Anger at the vipers’
USA Today legal analyst Jonathan Turley (11/19/21) complained, “Many viewers may not have learned that Rittenhouse spent his time cleaning graffiti off the high school.”
Elsewhere, conservative and right-leaning pundits turned their attention to the rest of the media and other perceived political enemies for their alleged roles in perpetuating a false narrative. The not guilty verdict conclusively debunked, in the view of conservative media, the supposedly widespread assumption by centrist media that Rittenhouse acted out of racial animus and in service of right-wing politics.
In an opinion piece for USA Today (11/19/21), legal analyst Jonathan Turley called the reporting on the trial and Rittenhouse himself the result of “passion” overwhelming clear-eyed reasoning, and fretted that there would be more “misinformation” spread as political polarization continues.
“The growing disconnect between actual crimes and their coverage is unlikely to change in our age of rage,” Turley wrote. “Rittenhouse had to be convicted to fulfill the narrative, and any acquittal had to be evidence of a racist jury picked to carry out racist justice.”
Megyn Kelly, the former Fox and NBC star who now hosts a show on SiriusXM, tweeted that she had “relief for Kyle, yes, but also anger at the vipers who did this to him” in the minutes following the verdict while she was on air.
‘Deceitful and morally repugnant’
Matt Taibbi (TK News, 11/19/21) decried “a year of pronouncing the ‘Kenosha shooter’ a murderer”—but failed to quote any journalists doing so.
Substack bloggers got in on the attacks on media coverage as well. Hours after the trial ended, Glenn Greenwald wrote (11/19/21) wrote:
I went live on Rumble to provide my views of why, after having watched the entire trial, I believed this verdict was just, and why the media narrative was particularly deceitful and morally repellent.
Matt Taibbi (11/19/21) wrote:
In a tinderbox situation like this one, it was reckless beyond belief for analysts to tell audiences Rittenhouse was a murderer, when many if not most of them had a good idea he would be acquitted. But that’s exactly what most outlets did.
(Taibbi did not cite any examples of “analysts” at “most outlets” who “[told] audiences Rittenhouse was a murderer.”)
And Bari Weiss took the opportunity afforded by the not guilty verdict to reup her article from earlier in the week (11/17/21), which claimed the American people were “served a pack of lies about what happened during those terrible days in Kenosha”—unless, of course, they had listened to her fellow conservatives Jacob Siegel (Tablet, 8/24/20) and Jesse Singal (Substack, 11/10/21), who cast doubt on the official narrative in favor of Rittenhouse from the beginning.
‘This trial was a warning shot’
AP (11/21/21): “A difficult political atmosphere for President Joe Biden may have become even more treacherous with the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse.”
More centrist networks did not ignore the role of race in the trial. On ABC’s This Week (11/21/21), attorney Channa Lloyd told Raddatz that if Rittenhouse had been Black, he likely would have faced a different outcome for killing two and wounding another. “Had Rittenhouse been an African-American young man…would the verdict have been the same?” Lloyd said. “Statistically, what we find is that it would not be.”
On CBS’s Face the Nation (11/21/21), NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said that it was hard to reconcile the experience of Black Americans in the US criminal justice system with the treatment received by Rittenhouse. “This trial was a warning shot,” he added, telling host Margaret Brennan that the verdict opened the door for more right-wing “vigilante justice.”
Still, corporate media couldn’t help but turn the verdict into horse race coverage. The Associated Press (11/21/21), in an article Saturday headlined “Rittenhouse Acquittal Tightens the Political Vise for Biden,” warned that Biden and the Democrats could face political fallout from their comments about the trial.
“The verdict in the case comes at a moment when Biden is trying to keep fellow Democrats focused on passing his massive social services and climate bill and hoping to turn the tide with Americans who have soured on his performance as president,” according to AP.
It’s a message that’s unlikely to resonate with the victims, the killer or their respective supporters—and in that respect, it’s something of a centrist success.
The post Corporate Media Celebrate Criminal Justice System—While Differing on Outcomes appeared first on FAIR.
This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Eoin Higgins.
Eoin Higgins | Radio Free (2021-12-01T17:10:21+00:00) Corporate Media Celebrate Criminal Justice System—While Differing on Outcomes. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2021/12/01/corporate-media-celebrate-criminal-justice-system-while-differing-on-outcomes/
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