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The Faux Fracas in Nevada: How a Reporter Manufactured a Riot
Jon Ralston, the dean of political reporting in Nevada, has spread nothing less than a pack of lies about what went down at the state’s Democratic convention on Saturday. And the fact averse oligarchic national media has run completely riot with the provable falsehoods. No chairs were thrown at the convention Saturday. No death threats were made against the chair of the convention Roberta Lange. And Bernie Sanders delegates were not simply mad because their louder shouting was ignored.
Ralston has been the culprit behind each of these falsehoods; and the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and a dizzying array of other outlets have swallowed them whole then regurgitated them for their much more massive audiences.
-snip-
As it turned out, Ralston finally admitted last night that he hadn’t seen this himself but was relying especially on local reporter Andrew Davey. Davey first said he had still frames showing the chair throwing which he would publish. He has not produced the stills in question, but did retweet a still image of a chair held high that was initially posted on Reddit. I spoke with the person who posted it to Reddit and confirmed that it was grabbed from the video now widely seen which shows that other Sanders supporters quickly took away the chair in question. I asked Davey by Twitter if he still had photos to publish, then criticized him for retweeting the Reddit image instead. He blocked me.
-snip-
Ralston was also the source of the claim that Roberta Lange received death threats, again plural. Ralston first reported that he had received audio and text of messages received by Lange after her phone number was posted online in the aftermath of Saturday’s mess. Ralston misreported the single instance that could be interpreted as a threat, however. The lede for his post on the matter simply stated: “One caller suggested she would be hung or burned.” The problem? When Ralston got around to posting the actual message later in the day, the caller turned out not to have said she would be hung, but rather that she should be.
Ralston has been the culprit behind each of these falsehoods; and the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and a dizzying array of other outlets have swallowed them whole then regurgitated them for their much more massive audiences.
-snip-
As it turned out, Ralston finally admitted last night that he hadn’t seen this himself but was relying especially on local reporter Andrew Davey. Davey first said he had still frames showing the chair throwing which he would publish. He has not produced the stills in question, but did retweet a still image of a chair held high that was initially posted on Reddit. I spoke with the person who posted it to Reddit and confirmed that it was grabbed from the video now widely seen which shows that other Sanders supporters quickly took away the chair in question. I asked Davey by Twitter if he still had photos to publish, then criticized him for retweeting the Reddit image instead. He blocked me.
-snip-
Ralston was also the source of the claim that Roberta Lange received death threats, again plural. Ralston first reported that he had received audio and text of messages received by Lange after her phone number was posted online in the aftermath of Saturday’s mess. Ralston misreported the single instance that could be interpreted as a threat, however. The lede for his post on the matter simply stated: “One caller suggested she would be hung or burned.” The problem? When Ralston got around to posting the actual message later in the day, the caller turned out not to have said she would be hung, but rather that she should be.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/18/the-faux-fracas-in-nevada-how-a-reporters-pack-of-lies-ran-riot-in-the-fact-averse-media/
