How Newspapers Lie
11th October 2020
A front page story in yesterday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune is a good illustration of how corrupt today’s press has become. It would be insignificant, except for the fact that its dishonesty is replicated thousands of times every day, in newspapers across the country.
The Strib’s story is headlined, in the print edition, “Town Lashes Out at Floyd’s Uncle.” The story refers to a controversy that occurred several months ago in Gettysburg, South Dakota, population 1,162, where, coincidentally, George Floyd’s uncle Selwyn Jones lives. Strib reporter Chao Xiong describes the controversy this way: “Jones led the charge to remove Confederate flag-adorned patches from the uniforms of Gettysburg police.” At the outset, there are several problems with this story.