Forget everything you’ve seen about the Black Lives Matter and antifa riots of 2020. The destruction, cracked heads, lasers pointed in cops’ eyes, burned buildings – forget it all. The “summer of love” riots weren’t that bad. That was fake news. Gaslighting. And we know this because the left-wing publication called The Intercept says that accurate riot stories, reported by a small cadre of reporters working for right-of-center publications, don’t really count. Somehow the violence of 2020 was magically less violent because these reporters were the ones who witnessed it and reported it.
The Intercept, in a piece called “MEET THE RIOT SQUAD: RIGHT-WING REPORTERS WHOSE VIRAL VIDEOS ARE USED TO SMEAR BLM” in ALL CAPS IN 50-POINT FONT!!!! on the front of the website reports that Townhall’s Julio Rosas and other videographers who work for such publications as The Daily Caller and The Blaze “smeared” BLM with their coverage of the riots.
Because they covered them.
This smacks of the same kind of excuses leftists in Seattle and Portland have been making about their pet rioters. It goes something like this: Oh, sure, they burned the cop shop, terrorized the neighbors, people died, and I couldn’t drive in those parts of the city for months, and I’m still afraid to go there, but was it really that bad? I mean, they didn’t terrorize the whole city or anything.
Related: Portland BLM/Antifa Draw Guns on Drivers to Enforce No-Go Zone in Broad Daylight
And so it is with the riot coverage everywhere. The Intercept reports that — “Come on, maan” — sure, there may have been hundreds of riots with looting, destruction, and bodies, but there were lots of other protests that didn’t turn into riots.
Yes, this is true. Are we supposed to be thankful that they didn’t all turn into riots or something? Thank you for not hurting us every time? The people walking into the U.S. Capitol after the rioters would like a little of that. You want proportionality? One riot in 300 years versus 300 riots in one year, as radio host Chris Plante put it. Please exercise some of that proportionality because there’s an old lady in Dubuque who would like her reputation back after being labeled a Capitol terrorist when she stayed inside the velvet rope with a police escort on January 6th.
These “right-wing” media are blowing this way out of proportion, says The Intercept in 50-point font.
In the year since George Floyd’s murder, conservative news outlets have endlessly hyped distorted stories about violence at Black Lives Matter protests. Key videos they used come from a tight-knit group of eight young journalists.
Oh. My. God. Becky.
Eight? Reporters? This is serious. This was collusion. A conspiracy even. A conspiracy to… cover the news.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that The Intercept doesn’t know what it is to work a beat in the news biz. Maybe that’s just too old-school and uncool these days. But the reporters cited and named — in what appear to be efforts to dox them before another long, hot summer of riots — actually do work a beat. In the summer of 2020 it was the riot and protest beat.
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The Intercept is cranky that these reporters were able to ply their trade, tell their stories — sometimes even on FOX NEWS!!! — unmolested by the antifa thugs. Their stories made The Intercept’s pet protesters look bad.
THE SOUND OF glass breaking, on Inauguration Day in Portland, Oregon, was music to the ears of Julio Rosas, a young video journalist.
When Rosas joined Laura Ingraham on Fox News that night, giving national attention to what would have been, before the era of viral video, just a local news story, [Jorge] Ventura held the camera for a live shot.
The Intercept’s piece made sure that antifa and BLM throughout the country will now know the faces and techniques of the small cadre of reporters who have reliably covered the left-wing riots.
And what happens to people the violent antifa and BLM militants know are reporters? If you’re Mike Strickland in 2016, you’re called a “racist” and told to get out. When you don’t stop covering “their” protest on “their” street, they send a mob to beat you. And if you try to defend yourself, hurting no one, you get jailed.
I was convicted of 21 counts after antifa terrorists targeted and attacked me in 2016, and I defended myself against them. My case is now headed to the Supreme Court. Help me fight for all of our rights! https://t.co/WXbBpYaeAK
— Laughing At Liberals (@LaughAtLibs) October 22, 2020
That didn’t happen to another videographer. Nope. Andy Ngo knew better than to fight back in 2019. He’d been a witness in Strickland’s trial and knew what would happen to him if he dared put up his dukes to defend himself. He didn’t want to go to jail. So, he ended up with a noxious “milkshake” thrown at him, a brain bleed, and a free trip to the ER.
I was beaten on the head & robbed on 29 June. Antifa then continued to hurl "milkshakes" at my bleeding face. I was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage. There still hasn't been a single arrest by @PortlandPolice. Help me seek justice; join my legal fund: https://t.co/QtCt7A6zJp pic.twitter.com/sis8pFo3lf
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 10, 2019
Recommended: Conservative Journalist Andy Ngo Beaten Up and Given a Brain Bleed by Antifa in Portland, Says Police Did Nothing
We’re quite sure The Intercept knows exactly what happens to reporters who cover these protests and riots if antifa catches them. Andy Ngo moved out of the country for a variety of reasons, one of which was to get away from the people in Portland’s antifa who threatened to kill him. He calls The Intercept report a “hit list.”
Exactly right.
Left-wing news site The Intercept releases a "hit list" of videographers who they say are right-wing and whose videos "smear BLM." Antifa accounts say they will seek out the reporters to harm them (some have already been assaulted). https://t.co/NQkpKTowU1
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) May 13, 2021
The Intercept’s reportage, which the publication hopes will be used to denigrate the product of the “riot squad,” gets downright silly. The publication is quite wary of Rosas, a Marine, going on The Ingraham Angle on Fox News.
On the air, Ingraham attributed the destruction to “antifa thugs,” using the right-wing shorthand that lumps everyone with left-of-center politics into one undifferentiated mass. Rosas, who was standing in front of a Circle-A — a symbol for anarchism, not anti-fascism — that had been spray-painted beside the ruined front door of the Democratic Party office, made no effort to correct her.
We don’t expect the out-of-town reporters at The Intercept to know this, but in Portland, the “antifa thugs” and anarchists are the same people. They just are. Ask them.
And have you ever seen a BLM event without antifa? Seldom, if ever. But The Intercept doesn’t want you to know that because that would mean its argument about “smearing” only BLM – you big racist – isn’t true. To be clear, the “riot squad” is made up of equal-opportunity reporters. If they see someone rioting, they’ll capture it on video and they don’t care what color the rioter is underneath that black-bloc balaclava.
Antifa supplies “security” for BLM. During a BLM march last week, those “security” forces stopped Portland traffic with AK-47s and AR-15 rifles and stomped and beat up at least two white men who dared to drive on “their” street. One of them was sent to the hospital trauma unit.
Pinkerton’s got nothing on these thugs.
Rosas obviously considers the Intercept piece unfair. He’s right.
Here is a simple truth: BLM/Antifa supporters and activists rioted in American cities for much of last year. I just happened to be one of the few who were willing to document it. I also noted when BLM supporters tried to stop rioters:
Here is a simple truth: BLM/Antifa supporters and activists rioted in American cities for much of last year. I just happened to be one of the few who were willing to document it. I also noted when BLM supporters tried to stop rioters: https://t.co/r90H0nh61Y
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) May 13, 2021
The Daily Caller’s contingent of the “riot squad” had some fun with the story, even though their experiences during the last summer should tell them this is deadly serious.
With help from @theintercept, allow us to present:
The Riot Squad pic.twitter.com/hA1BNMIDp9
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 13, 2021
Related: Man Beaten and Held at Gunpoint by BLM/Antifa Says Attacker Used ‘George Floyd Restraint’ on His Neck
The publication claims that the reporters’ “images have helped create the false impression” that the George Floyd — “summer of love” in Jenny Durkan’s words — riots were “just an excuse for mindless rioting.”
[T]hey are members of an informal club of right-wing video journalists who roam from city to city, feeding the conservative media’s hunger for images of destruction and violence on the margins of left-wing protests.
The impact of their work is hard to overstate. Even as they remain relatively unknown, this tight-knit group has produced many of the most viral videos of Black Lives Matter protests over the past year. And those images have helped create the false impression, relentlessly driven home by Fox News and Republican politicians, that the nationwide wave of protests that erupted after George Floyd was killed was nothing but an excuse for mindless rioting.
The impact of their reporting has made a difference — that’s what The Intercept is trying to say there. They make the fascist mob look guilty and foolish because they record that mob in its natural state. Now, where would anyone get the idea that the destructive and mindless rioting of the summer of 2020 could be seen as, well, mindless? Nay, sayeth the reporters at The Intercept. The riots had a noble intention. Pay no attention to the 2020 election, these riots were all about George Floyd and listening to “the language of the unheard.” If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that in the last year, we might be able to pay for all the damage the mob did to the downtown Portland federal courthouse and the Apple Store. Both times.
Related: ‘I Thought I Was Going to Die’ – Man Held at Gunpoint and Beaten by Portland’s Antifa/BLM Terrorists Talks From Hospital Trauma Center
Shoot, you might even be able to buy one of the Louis Vuitton bags BLM and antifa looted. For George Floyd, you understand.
The founder of The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald, fired because he was too moderate, gets the last word:
Journalists have been repeatedly assaulted while covering Antifa protests. Antifa threatens journalists, breaks their cameras, and attacks them violently. The Intercept knows this. They’re showing Antifa which 2 journalists they should look out for. That’s what this is for.
Journalists have been repeatedly assaulted while covering Antifa protests. Antifa threatens journalists, breaks their cameras, and attacks them violently. The Intercept knows this. They're showing Antifa which 2 journalists they should look out for. That's what this is for.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 13, 2021
Right in one.
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