CBS Can't Help Itself, Calls Protests 'Mostly Peaceful' While Reporting Massive Damage Price Tag
It would be hard to call this even “mostly journalism.”
The final bill’s not in yet, but just the first two weeks of the riots wracking the country this year caused the highest insurance payments from violent demonstrations in history – and at CBS News, they were still “mostly peaceful.”
That was the message American viewers were apparently supposed to take away from anchorwoman Norah O’Donnell’s report on Wednesday regarding the scale of the damage caused by Black Lives Matter and antifa activists in cities across the United States.
“The protests in late spring were mostly peaceful,” O’Donnell said, “but damage from looting and arson will cost $1 to $2 billion in claims.”
No one at CBS saw a problem with that presentation?
The “CBS Evening News” segment was based on data from the Insurance Information Institute, which, according to Axios, compiled claims estimates from numerous industry sources about the riots that followed the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
The report covered only May 26 through June 8, yet the insurance payout was estimated to be at least $1 billion, according to Axios.
Considering that the riots continued throughout the summer, and that insurance won’t cover anywhere near all of the destruction, the final amount is likely to be much, much higher.
“It’s not just happening in one city or state — it’s all over the country,” the Insurance Information Institute’s Loretta L. Worters told Axios.
“And this is still happening, so the losses could be significantly more.”
Yet CBS insisted on calling the unrest “mostly peaceful.”
FLOYD PROTESTS: Damage from looting and arson amid mostly peaceful protests over the police killing of George Floyd will cost $1-2 billion in claims, according to the Insurance Information Institute. pic.twitter.com/uaNPwwnUEQ
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) September 16, 2020
For some perspective, just the first weeks of violence ran up a tab equal to or greater than the $775 million ($1.4 billion adjusted for inflation) bill for the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, according to the Axios report.
It far exceeds the $357 million in damage (adjusted for inflation) from the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965 and the $322 million (adjusted for inflation) in damage caused by the 1967 riots in Detroit, according to Axios.
And other notorious unrest in American history, like the New York City blackout of 1977, and the Newark, New Jersey, riots of 1967, aren’t even close.
No sane person would ever call those ugly stains on the country’s past “mostly peaceful,” yet the mainstream media of 2020 insists on the “mostly peaceful” narrative to paint rioters as righteous victims of American society – and foster opposition to President Donald Trump as the November election gets closer.
It’s a deception too obvious to fool anyone not blinkered or blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome.
“Mostly peaceful”??? There you go again…
— Proud Texas Girl (@proudtexasgirl) September 16, 2020
They have no shame. “Mostly peaceful” protests should NOT cause BILLIONS of dollars in damage. #MediaMalpractice at its finest!
— The Millman (@millman85) September 16, 2020
Do you realize how stupid you sound injecting the mostly peaceful into that headline.
— SandyS (@SandyS121718) September 16, 2020
Striving for first place in fake news. Keep it up. Mostly peaceful with deaths, destruction, and looting in major Democratic strongholds. Please learn what objective journalism means and constitutes.
— HistoryBuff (@BlueBuffalo81) September 17, 2020
As Media Research Center news analyst Nicholas Fondacaro pointed out, CBS at least covered the monetary damage report. NBC and ABC took a pass.
So Americans can be grateful that at least one broadcast network in the mainstream media decided to report at least a partial accounting of the damage caused by the likes of Black Lives Matter, the so-called “anti-fascist” thugs known as antifa, or just the entitled young, white kids who decided looting malls was a great way to promote social justice.
But even that report had to include the farcical caveat that the protests have been “mostly peaceful.”
Call it “mostly dishonest.” And it’s costing the mainstream media more in credibility than any insurance policy could ever cover.
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