The Faux Fracas in Nevada: How a Reporter Manufactured a Riot

[Judi Lynn]

May 18, 2016
The Faux Fracas in Nevada: How a Reporter Manufactured a Riot

by Doug Johnson Hatlem

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.

While as late as 2012 Ralston could be counted on as someone with a known Liberal establishment bias who would nevertheless stand firm where it came to truth and journalistic integrity, his ethics began to slip in the years since. (And let’s be clear, refusing to write for an outlet anymore that pulled a column unfavorable to Harry Reid is honorable; waiting over two years to reveal that fact is a bit dastardly.)

. . .

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.

More:
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/