Since Monday night, the media has experienced various stages of awful and surprisingly awesome reporting on Baltimore’s protests. After barely covering the unrest at all on Saturday because the White House Correspondent’s Dinner kept them busy, Monday saw the media’s worst and dimmest cover a serious social unraveling that’s erupted after decades of neglect and abuse thanks to guys like CNN’s Don Lemon and Fox’s Geraldo Rivera.
Those bosses were really swinging for the fences this week, eh?
On Tuesday, Rivera—the man who blamed Trayvon Martin for his own death because he was wearing a hoodie—hit Baltimore. As one might predict, he was not welcomed with open arms. In fact, protesters blocked his Fox News cameras while others shouted “Stop exploiting us!” and “You’re making money off of black pain.”
Rivera tried to shame one of the protesters who was talking to his camera by saying he was “making a fool” of himself and the man turned around and basically told Rivera to get lost. It was great television because Rivera isn’t a reporter or a journalist. He just goes into places to incite madness and leaves, which is what Maryland State Senator Majority Leader Catherine Pugh told Rivera herself in a cathartic exchange. Via the Daily News:
When the flustered Fox anchor said it seemed like those in the crowd “want trouble,” Pugh sternly shut him down.
“No, they don’t want trouble,” she said. “We want our people to go home, but we also need the media to move back, because this is just inciting people.”Protesters and State Senator Pugh: 1; Fox News: 0
Then over at Fox News headquarters, hosts Shep Smith and Bill O’Reilly shocked me. On The Five, Smith couldn’t stomach the trolling rhetoric of his co-hosts Greg Gutfeld and Eric Bolling, asking ‘Where are the looters’ parents?’ and ‘Why hasn’t some civil rights leader come down to ask for peace?’ Instead of agreeing with them, Smith got really logical and said, via Salon:
“We’ve got a major American city that has decades — decades — of turmoil within this neighborhood,” he said. “They feel powerless and hopeless. One quarter of the youth locked up. Clearly there is a big problem. Then, all of the sudden, an African-American man is taken into a vehicle, and he comes out of it and dies — and you get nothing from authorities except a suspension. There is no escaping that reality.”Later, during The O’Reilly Factor, Bill indicted the Baltimore police, noting that no actions have been taken against the cops who gave Freddie Gray the injuries that took his life.
Has hell officially frozen over? Nah. In the next breath O’Reilly told blacks to bootstrap their way up.
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