Last week the mainstream media went all in on an unverified story about a waiter in Texas who got a “racist note” from a mean and nasty racist patron who wrote “We don’t tip terrorist” on the top of his bill.
The Washington Post, Newsweek, ABC, BBC, USA Today, CBS, New York Post, Huffington Post, The Root, and many other local, national, and international media outlets ran with a sketchy story, even though the exact same type of hoax has been tried before.
"We don’t tip terrorist": Texas restaurant bans customer who left racist note to waiter https://t.co/4ZpFJc4hBv
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 19, 2018
via @Newsweek Customer Who Wrote 'We Don't Tip Terrorist' on Check Banned From Texas Restaurant https://t.co/hz5YceTQhr pic.twitter.com/obFhK6QxEO
— Mr David Jones …By The Way ☕☕ (@_MrDavidJones) July 19, 2018
Customer who left "we don't tip terrorist" message banned from Texas restaurant https://t.co/uScMybkpq4 pic.twitter.com/qds2yuViOZ
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 20, 2018
"We don't tip terrorist", read a racist note scrawled on the receipt a US waiter posted to Facebook. "He fabricated the entire story," the restaurant revealed. https://t.co/3SLRyTPjLx
— BBC_HaveYourSay (@BBC_HaveYourSay) July 24, 2018
A customer used his racism in attempt to mask him being cheap when he left a note that read "we don't tip terrorist" on his bill: https://t.co/HyCmmMqQRP pic.twitter.com/S6cWkMmfy8
— The Root (@TheRoot) July 21, 2018
Some blue checkmarks with large followings also weighed in on Twitter, garnering massive retweets.
The waiter's response is beautiful. With people like him in the world, we will change!https://t.co/KhLLQdEUCg
— Brad Takei (@BradTakei) July 19, 2018
https://twitter.com/sahluwal/status/1019749950328954880
https://twitter.com/MuslimIQ/status/1020092529864249346
Here’s the CBS local news report on the incident:
Most — if not all — of the reports were written without the smallest degree of skepticism, even though the MSM should be savvy enough by now to be wary of such stories because the odds are pretty good that they are going to turn out to be fake hate.
But the dream narrative of the establishment media is to show racist white people trying to victimize minorities and so such stories are always “too good to check,” as they say, and so the fake story went viral.
Here’s a sample from Newsweek, where they laid it on so thick readers were probably reaching for the Kleenex box by the end:
Texas restaurant is standing behind its waiter after a customer refused to leave him a tip and instead left behind a message calling him a “terrorist.”
Khalil Cavil shared a photo on Sunday of the customer’s nasty note—“We don’t tip terrorist”—and his name circled on the top of the $108 bill at Saltgrass Steak House. The customers did not leave a tip.
“At the moment I didn’t know what to think nor what to say, I was sick to my stomach,” the 20-year-old waiter wrote on Facebook. “Although, this is nothing new, it is still something that will test your faith.”
Cavil is working at the steakhouse in Odessa, Texas, as he gets ready to head to Dallas Baptist University later this year, the Odessa American reported. He wrote that he chose not to get angry but instead “decided to let this encourage” him and “fuel me to change the world.”
“I have decided to let this encourage me, and fuel me to change the world the only way I know how. So to all the haters out there, keep talking, your [sic] only helping me step into my destiny!” he added.
As Newsweek goes on to note, the story was widely shared. Within a few days, the Facebook post “had garnered over 20,000 shares, more than 27,000 reactions and nearly 8,000 comments.” His mother told reporters that she was surprised by the huge response and said she was “very proud” of her son.
Saltgrass Steak House COO Terry Turney said in a statement: “We stand by and support our employee. Racism of any form is unacceptable and we have banned this customer from returning to our establishment.”
In another post last Wednesday, Cavil thanked everyone for the support he’s received, which included monetary donations. “There has been so much support and encouraging messages that it’s been hard to keep up with all of them,” he wrote.
“It was about shedding a light on racism and sharing the love of Jesus. It was about igniting conversations because I believe real change happens when we start talking about the issue and acknowledging its [sic] there.”
Cavil said in the post that he had decided to put the money he’d received into missionary work at his church.
Are you ready for the punchline?
“After further investigation, we have learned that our employee fabricated the entire story,” Turney told the Odessa American in a statement. “The customer has been contacted and invited back to our restaurant to dine on us. Racism of any form is intolerable, and we will always act swiftly should it occur in any of our establishments.”
Turney added: “Falsely accusing someone of racism is equaling [sic] disturbing.”
Cavil admitted that he wrote the racist note on Monday, apologizing to the Odessa American reporter “because I did lie to you.”
“I did write it,” Cavil said. “I don’t have an explanation. I made a mistake. There is no excuse for what I did.”
Cavil told the newspaper, “I deeply made a huge, big mistake. And I’m in the process of getting the help that I need.”
He also said all of the monetary donations he received would be returned. The troubled waiter has been fired from the restaurant.
All of the news outlets that reported the fake news have either updated or posted new stories correcting the record — with egg all over their faces.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: A healthy degree of skepticism should be the policy in newsrooms when dealing with stories like this one. But they never learn so they’ll be burned again and again and again.
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