Question of the Day: Should the mainstream media apologize for spreading the fake news "hands up, don't shoot" lie? #Hannity— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) December 9, 2016
This was the testimony of many people who observed the shooting of Michael Brown. The MSM reporters were discussing what actual people were alleging. Maybe it was right, maybe it wasn't, but sometimes reporting means hearing out people whose stories aren't always 100% accurate.
Sean Hannity knows full well that activism isn't about straight journalism, because he has never been about straight journalism himself. What irks me about this question is that sometimes hands really are up. Maybe we can't verify the eyewitness accounts of so many people in Ferguson. But there are nonetheless accounts of police brutality elsewhere, and better vetted. But if journalism is about uncovering stories--is it not true that sometimes a story in the midst of being unraveled isn't 100% accurate? What matters is how the reporting is managed once the actual facts are revealed.
I don't think MSM reporters are wrong for covering what sparked the movement--because they had to honestly admit that something did. That it might have been more complicated was also covered. It was not "fake news" so much as a difference of opinion. But it is still a pretty valid opinion that cops shouldn't really just shoot dead vaguely threatening unarmed black people because they can. I'm pretty much going to stick with this opinion.
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