A Terrible FOX News Reporter Went To Baltimore And Got Thoroughly Schooled By Protesters

The riots in Baltimore following the death in custody of young black man Freddie Gray have dominated US news coverage for the past couple of days. That coverage, as it always is, has been extremely selective about which events it chooses to highlight and which it chooses to ignore, and the tone it takes when doing so. Footage of black guys standing in front of something burning gets a run as “thugs and criminals” violently destroying inner-city neighbourhoods, but the days of peaceful protest preceding things turning violent didn’t get nearly as much airtime.

And forget about asking how Baltimore’s decades of endemic poverty and mass unemployment, long and storied history of police brutality towards black people and crippling drug trade may have contributed to the kind of atmosphere that would lend itself to civil unrest, given a catalyst. That kind of Journalism 101 analysis is far beyond the scope of pundits on mainstream outlets like CNN, even if smaller outlets like Complex TV can somehow do it by talking to people:

But if CNN is being useless and reductive in its reportage, good old FOX News have gone one step further by sending Geraldo Rivera, the journalistic equivalent of a cold sore, to Baltimore to dispense his unique wisdom on events. Rivera’s history of on-the-job fuck-ups is legendary — he was once caught out claiming he had been on the scene in a friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan that actually happened almost 500 kilometres away, and the US military almost kicked him out of Iraq in 2003 for revealing details of an upcoming military operation on TV. His response to the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman was to call for young black kids not to wear hoodies.

Rivera’s sensationalist style and elasticity with the truth made him the perfect guy to cover Baltimore for FOX, and he duly provided:

Rivera did the job FOX sent him to Baltimore to do; file a ‘report’ painting a picture of chaos and violence on Baltimore streets overrun by angry, loud young black men — in his own words, “it seems like they want trouble”. But when the FOX camera stopped rolling, a far more revealing and honest exchange between Rivera and one of those young black men was caught on someone’s smartphone.

“I want you and FOX News to get out of Baltimore City, because you’re not here reporting about the boarded-up homes and the homeless people on the MLK [Boulevard], you’re not reporting about the poverty levels up and down North Avenue. Two years ago, when the 300 Men March marched … you weren’t here! But you’re here for the black riots! You’re not here for the death of Freddie Gray!

“A black man can raise his voice, and you don’t have to be intimidated!”

There are two main people in that video, and the wrong one has a national platform. It’s worth watching multiple times for numerous reasons, but that was the big takeaway for me.