A CBS Radio News report on the horrific black-on-white torture case in Chicago falsely implied that the victim was black and his attackers were white, Mediaite reported.
On Friday, a listener on Reddit flagged the brief Thursday morning report which refused to clarify the races of the parties involved, deceptively suggesting that the roles were reversed:
The viral video of a beating and knife attack in Chicago suggests the assault had racial overtones. CBS’s Dean Reynolds tells us the victim is described as a mentally-challenged teenager.
In the video he is choked and repeatedly called the n-word. His clothes are slashed and he is terrorized with a knife. His alleged captors repeatedly reference Donald Trump. Police are holding four people in connection with the attack.
UPDATE: The original audio clip embedded below has since been removed by the individual who uploaded. You can listen to the recording here.
As Alex Griswold at Mediaite noted, the report, while technically correct, was very misleading.
The n-word was indeed used to refer to the victim, but only in the more neutral sense that is often used in black vernacular. Omitted from the report are details that would [have] corrected that misapprehension. Most obviously, the report could have simply stated the attackers’ and victim’s races. But it also neglected to clarify that the “reference” to Donald Trump was “F*** Donald Trump,” and neglected completely the fact that the attackers yelled “F*** white people.”
It’s not clear whether CBS Radio’s ambiguous (to the point of being deceptive) reporting was a case of stupefying political correctness, or actually an attempt to downplay the inconvenient narrative, but it is clearly yet another case of media malpractice.
You can watch the horrific video below.
(Warning: extremely graphic)
Join the conversation as a VIP Member