While a jury properly found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all criminal charges Friday, ESPN decided to cement its legacy as an irresponsible network during a pre-game show that evening. Needless to say, the left-wing analysts got their facts wrong, as is all too typical of sports media.
During the conversation, bigoted provocateur Jalen Rose claimed the police killed an innocent Jacob Blake, which was the impetus for the violent riots last summer in southeast Wisconsin where Rittenhouse shot three men.
Again I've never seen anything like this. I don't ever want to hear about misinformation from Facebook memes. Like, again. Ever. A massive failure and done on purpose. https://t.co/2IlExQbtDw
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 20, 2021
Of course, as any literate news consumer knows, police did not kill Jacob Blake. He is quite alive. Moreover, the police did not commit a crime when they shot Blake 15 months ago. They arrived on a chaotic scene after a woman Blake sexually assaulted called them. Blake had a knife in his possession, refused to drop it, and police shot him.
“Yeah, I had my knife,” Blake responded when asked about the shooting.
Rose is either ignorant or purposely lied to his gullible audience. And it’s not the first time an ESPN employee has lied about the Jacob Blake story.
ESPN’s Mark Jones interrupted a live NBA game last season to say police shot Blake while unarmed.
A few three weeks later, sleazy reporter Adrian Wojnarowski — who protected Communist China last summer by throwing a profane tantrum at a sitting U.S. senator — spread the same lie about Blake in a column ESPN happily posted on its home page.
Related: Media Convicted on All Counts of Lying About Kyle Rittenhouse
Going back to Friday night, ESPN’s producers had time to build graphics for the discussion, yet no one on the television team informed Rose that Blake was still alive?
It’s just another appalling programming failure for the once-proud network. Most of their dwindling viewers probably will never know the truth. Maybe that’s ESPN’s intention. Maybe they should stay in their lane and leave real issues to well-informed people.
And for what it’s worth, the news media had a similarly awful, factless Friday evening.
Liberal gadfly on MSNBC says the GOP are "celebrating political violence" w/the Rittenhouse verdict providing cover to "kill" anyone at a protest, "go on the stand, repeat what Kyle did, cry on queue & you walk and everyone should be concerned there’s a gathering, violent storm." pic.twitter.com/z4RIBWjoNC
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 20, 2021
Itching for a defamation suit: @CNN's @ChrisCuomo smears Rittenhouse as out to kill and benefiting from self-defense law https://t.co/hBYUNg6W8e
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) November 20, 2021
We’ll give Rich Lowry the last word:
The Rittenhouse case shows the people who are obsessed with fighting misinformation are the most misinformed;
the people who call everyone else racist can’t see beyond race themselves;
and the people who lecture about norms are entirely willing to disregard the facts and law
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) November 20, 2021
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