GLENN GREENWALD: Yet Another Media Tale — Trump Tear-Gassed Protesters For a Church Photo Op — Collapses.

For more than a year, it has been consecrated media fact that former President Donald Trump and his White House, on June 1 of last year, directed the U.S. Park Police to use tear gas against peaceful Lafayette Park protesters, all to enable a Trump photo-op in front of St. John’s Church. That this happened was never presented as a possibility or likelihood but as indisputable truth. And it provoked weeks of unmitigated media outrage, presented as one of the most egregious assaults on the democratic order in decades.

This tale was so pervasive in the media landscape that it would be impossible for any one article to compile all the examples. “Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op,” read the NPR headline on June 1. The New York Times ran with: “Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church.” CNN devoted multiple segments to venting indignation while the on-screen graphic declared: “Peaceful Protesters Near White House Tear-Gassed, Shot With Rubber Bullets So Trump Can Have Church Photo Op.”

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With the issuance of this independent debunking of their claims, the journalists who spread this latest lie have started to come to terms with what they did — yet again. “A narrative we thought we knew is not the reality,” NBC News’ chief CIA Disinformation Agent Ken Dilanian awkwardly acknowledged on Meet the Press Daily. Shortly before publication of this article, Politico begrudgingly admitted that while “the department’s Park Police failed to give Black Lives Matter demonstrators proper warning before it cleared them from Lafayette Park,” their primary media claim was untrue: “its actions were unrelated to President Donald Trump’s photo-op appearance at a nearby church.” Time will tell how readily others who spread this lie will account for how they — yet again — got this story so wrong.

“A narrative we thought we knew is not the reality” sums up most of the DNC-MSM’s daily output remarkably well. And of course their candidate was quick to pile onto the narrative that wasn’t reality last year as well: Government Report Undermines Biden’s Claim That Trump Had Protesters Tear-Gassed.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): A former journalist friend texts: “All their red-faced mea culpas about tear gas or anything else are meaningless until they say, ‘We regurgitated unconfirmed and ultimately false garbage. Not only because we wanted to believe it. But because we wanted to take him down. And it worked! In the end, we are the garbage.’
‘Do not trust us. We suck’ is probably asking too much.” It’s basically true, though.