The main story on NBC Nightly News concerned the first hostage release in the Israel/Gaza war. About 10 minutes into the broadcast, they ran three stories, all involving heightened mall security on Black Friday. The first story was about a pro-Palestine protest in LA that briefly blocked traffic to a mall; the second was on a bomb threat in New Jersey; the third was on the continuing upsurge of “smash and grab” robberies nationwide. But the headline banner read “Black Friday Protests”, while all three images that ran over it were of the completely unrelated robberies. Viewers were left with the impression that the anti-war protesters were wearing black like Antifa, concealing their identities with masks, smashing store windows, and grabbing the goods.
I don’t think the network deliberately conflated the protest and robbery stories. Lester Holt and his staff were merely lazy, and possibly still digesting their Thanksgiving turkey. Whatever their excuse might be, their carelessness revealed their unconscious bias. They painted with the blackest of brushes protests that were clearly motivated by moral outrage. Anyone who has attended big political demonstrations knows that there are usually a few people on the fringe who are looking for a fight, or for a distraction to cover some criminal activity. Often, the major media will cover the few bad actors and ignore thousands of peaceful demonstrators.
In this case, a news venue used images of criminal activity that it knew had no connection with a protest to smear that protest, and by extension, all pro-Palestinian protests. Millions of people watched this piece of fake news. And it wasn’t even on Fox.