Jan 6th

Background

A hugely important story, not just for the fact that the legacy media were caught red-handed peddling a demonstrable falsehood. More important still was who set the falsehood running, and how they did it.

Before the smoke cleared on January 6th, there was already a contest as to who would write the history of the event, and what that history would be. For Trump’s opposition, the worse it was (in the retelling) the better. Thus the insistence on the Democratic side that the Capitol riot was an “insurrection”, and not only that, but a “deadly” one.

It is uncontroversial that five people who were present at the Capitol that day had died in some short period of time afterward. Only one of those deaths occurred as a result of violence: that of a Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer.

That was not, however, how the other fatalities were covered in the media in the aftermath of the event. The death of one person in particular, Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, was reported as having occurred as a result of the riot, with the lurid allegation that he had been struck in the head with a fire extinguisher.

In truth, Sicknick had returned home alive that evening. He collapsed and died the following day. Not only had he not been struck in the head with a fire extinguisher: an autopsy report released in April revealed that he had died of natural causes, specifically of stroke.

What is most significant about the reporting of Officer Sicknick’s death is where the fire extinguisher claim emanated from: The New York Times, with their story on Feb. 8, and the Associated Press, on Feb. 9. Both relied on unnamed sources. After the Iraq War, stories like this ought to have been received by the rest of the legacy media as coming covered in red flashing lights. The opposite occurred. They regurgitated these falsehoods on an industrial scale. If it was good enough for the Times and the AP, it was good enough for them. It never occurred to them that some actual journalism might be required.

Stories like this are important reminders that the real problem with legacy media lies not principally with its most buffoonish propagandists like Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough, toxic though the presence of those individuals is to the information ecosystem. They may (albeit to an ever-diminishing degree) contribute to shaping opinion. The New York Times, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post make news.

The motivating impulse behind this site is to demonstrate that reliance on those old newsmakers is unmerited. That is all the more the case because, and not despite the fact that, unlike their lesser brethren on cable, they scrupulously refrain from peddling falsehoods, except when it’s important.

Highlights: Revolver News, whose work brought the falsehoods laundered by the Times and AP and uncritically regurgitated by the rest of the legacy media, undone, and Glenn Greenwald’s piece amplifying it.