TV News station edits video to "thuggify" a 4 year old African American boy

[EvolveOrConvolve]

For those white people, like me, that never fully understood the magnitude of the war being waged on African Americans in the U.S., the last few weeks have been an eye opening and sobering experience. And this is yet another example of the sort of silent tyranny being experienced by some Americans. Fucking disgusting.

[Heddi]

1. That's ridiculous

Nice edit of WHY he is going to have a gun. Fucking pricks.

[AverageJoe90]

2. Unacceptable.

Honestly, whoever came up with the idea of cutting that video needs to be fired.....yes, even if there may not have been racist intent(which is possible).

[woo me with science]

3. Okay, that actually brought tears to my eyes.

Good fucking god, how evil is this media machine.

And how do we trust ANYTHING they tell us...about ourselves, about politicians, about people in the countries we bomb...

[Kalidurga]

4. Sadly even if that is all a 4 year old said it's understandable

and we really should be alarmed if a 4 year old is so scared he feels like he has to arm himself like an middleaged, overweight, white man.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. What the 4 year old said was he wanted to be a police officer.

The edit was ridiculously, obviously, changing the intent.

[Voice for Peace]

11. intentionally changing the intent, too.

[Kalidurga]

13. Yes and it does make it even sadder what they did

either way though it's sad. He was unjustly smeared and used to promote an agenda. But, even worse is that those pushing it haven't though of or don't care what the implication is, if real life events happened the way they slanted them.

[Dustlawyer]

20. Any other day they push the "good guy with a gun" meme!

[freshwest]

5. Typical M$M bullshit. They edited for O'Keefe, Breitbart and to smear Obama. Pure garbage.

Kid sounds like he wants to protect people. Yet those souless, vapid jerks just had to smear him.

[RKP5637]

6. Today's MSM is just a sewer. I often wonder how many even studied journalism.

MSM is only interested in $$$$$ and will only air what brings in the dollars, and lie like hell to achieve it.

[Live and Learn]

7. Disgusting. They should be sued for slander. nt

[NealK]

8. Disgusting.

[Voice for Peace]

10. WOW. that is OUTRAGEOUS.

[DAngelo136]

12. Why do we act as if we weren't warned?

"...This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.

Reaction to last summer’s disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.

This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed. Choice is still possible. Our principal task is to define that choice and to press for a national resolution.

To pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values.

"The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society.

This alternative will require a commitment to national action—compassionate, massive and sustained, backed by the resources of the most powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new will.

The vital needs of the nation must be met; hard choices must be made, and, if necessary, new taxes enacted.

Violence cannot build a better society. Disruption and disorder nourish repression, not justice. They strike at the freedom of every citizen. The community cannot—it will not—tolerate coercion and mob rule.

Violence and destruction must be ended—in the streets of the ghetto and in the lives of people.

Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans.

What white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain, and white society condones it."-From the Kerner Commission Report 1968

[jtuck004]

15. The community cannot—it will not—tolerate coercion and mob rule. < Oh, Bullshit. We have been

tolerating it for over 200 years. On and in the lives of black people.

It just doesn't make tv until it is black people doing it

[Skittles]

19. worthy of its own thread

yes indeed

[EvolveOrConvolve]

23. Really, really good post!

Like skittles said, it deserves its own thread. It shows in pretty stark terms how the ghetto-ization of American minority groups is a WHITE problem not a black problem.

I'm embarrassed to say that I'd never heard of the Kerner Commission - they obviously didn't teach it in schools. The fact it wasn't taught to me is another example of the insidious undercurrent of racism inherent in American society.

For those like me, here's more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerner_Commission.
An overview of and excerpts from the report: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6545/

[Cha]

14. K&R.. get this out there.. thanks Evolve!

[ReRe]

16. And you know what?

...they probably get paid extra for manipulating film like that.

Media: they have the ability to make things exceptionally ugly or exceptional pretty, depending upon the politics of the owner and staff he hires.

[daredtowork]

17. We are Missing this Check on the News

The TV news regularly splices video to tell the story it wants, often putting interview answers with new questions or quoting out of context. The aim is to tell the most sensational story, the easiest story, the story the audience "wants" to hear, the story our Corporate Overlords approve of so they will pay for the commercials. The news uses real people as fodder for its stories but doesn't give a darn about the damage their stories do when they tell lies about those people. These days they can get away with it because they know poor people can rarely afford lawyers to champion their rights.

What's really needed is something like a media watchdog that specifically addresses when editing crosses the line into fictionalization. Ordinary people who get swept up into the medias endless gobbling of "personal stories" should have a place to complain to, some place that will investigate and defend their basic rights. This needs to be a nimble organization that can act fast before the various news venues copy each other and the damage spreads like the plague.

[Populist_Prole]

18. Where is this? SC or Tx I'll guess

[d_r]

28. I'm guessing Chicago

but I don't know. Just based on station affiliate, channel and logo, street name, and background


ETA based on the information from the video, I am pretty sure it is Chicago in 2011

Not the matching details in the two stories.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/06/30/1-dead-at-least-4-wounded-in-overnight-shootings/

ETAA: yes, it was cbs channel 2 in Chicago-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/01/wbbm-distorts-child-inter_n_914884.html

[gollygee]

21. Holy crap

What news station is this? Wow. Horrible

[myrna minx]

22. Outrageous. K&r n/t

[The Magistrate]

24. Jesus, Sir, That Is Just Disgusting

[MNBrewer]

25. Ugh. That's grotesque.

[Takket]

26. WOW someone better be fired for that.

Why is it when a white person wants to get a gun it is a heroic and all American exercising of his 2A rights, but when a black 4 year old talks about getting a gun, it us portrayed as a savage continuation of thug violence, even though the kid says he wants the gun to be in law enforcement (because he wants to keep the streets safe from "thugs&quot ?

[Octafish]

27. ''When you tell half the truth, you are innefective.''

Innefective as a journalist, effective as a disinformationist.

Thank you for the heads-up, EvolveOrConvolve. Someone is going to be in a lot of trouble -- and I hope it includes more than one reporter and one producer at Local News whatever.

[oberliner]

29. Sadly, I'm sure this sort of thing happens often

Good that in today's society it's harder for folks to get away with it. Thanks for helping to get this video out there.

[oberliner]

30. The station issued an apology

We accept responsibility for the mistakes that were made, both in the reporting and editing of the story. The video of the child should not have aired. As soon as news management identified the problem, they took immediate steps to ensure that the video would not air in subsequent newscasts. In addition, we have followed up with our employees to make sure that we all have learned from the mistakes that were made.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/01/wbbm-distorts-child-inter_n_914884.html

[JoeyT]

32. Gotta love the non-apology apologies.

"Mistakes were made" Like someone's finger slipped and accidentally edited a video.

[oberliner]

33. Pretty typical

And if they hadn't been busted, it would've just slipped on by.

[freshwest]

39. Not good enough! They should air the full video and explain that he wanted a gun to stop criminals.

They still left the public with the impression that the kid was some kind of future criminal, when he is just the opposite! I hope social media gets all over this and the ones who did this!

No mealy mouthed apology will suffice for smearing a little boy like that. The real story is what they should air over and over again until it sinks in that he's a good kid:

Every day. Or yank their license. Until all media quits dehumanizing.

P. S. Not mad at you, but at them. This has to stop.

[oberliner]

40. Agreed

But at least the full video is out there for people to see.

[Liberal_in_LA]

31. kick

[mrdmk]

34. K & R, nothing short of pure BULLSHIT n/t

[magical thyme]

35. here is the communications director at WBBM, which makes this inexplicable to me

?MaxW=860&maxh=590&cb=20140824055203&cci_ts=20100720002437

Shawnelle Richie is the Communications Director quoted in the apology.

[TheKentuckian]

36. Ahh...Our media at work distortion, misdirection, misinformation, distraction, and propaganda

We have fallen as a society and won't be able to get up playing business as usual. Your are being lied to, distracted, and misdirected to build a prison for your mind that it cannot escape because the most important part of the scam is to trick you I to being the guard and warden of your own incarceration.

[Skittles]

37. I want to see an interview with the person who edited this

and their boss - I'd like some questions answered please

this is deception and fraud and completely unacceptable

[Marrah_G]

38. What station/city is that?

Whoever edited that needs to be fired.