CNN harkened back to one of the mainstream media’s darkest hours over the weekend when it parroted a description used during the horrific violence of 2020’s George Floyd riots. That was when journalists repeatedly attempted to paint the destruction as “mostly peaceful.”
Atlanta’s “Night of Rage” followed last week’s shooting of a Georgia state trooper by an alleged Antifa protester. Law enforcement returned fire and killed the suspect, and the trooper had to undergo surgery.
Protesters for months have vandalized the grounds of the new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Calling it “Cop City,” leftists created a large encampment on the site that was being cleared away when one allegedly opened fire.
Antifa members and their sympathizers declared a “Night of Rage,” which resulted in the burning of a police vehicle, destruction of property, and six arrests.
Naturally, authorities in the Georgia city spoke out against the violence and mayhem. Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum and Mayor Andre Dickens held a press conference Sunday in which they condemned the protesters’ actions, including being caught with explosives.
CNN, however, wanted no part of that honest narrative.
Mostly peaceful, again, CNN? Guest questions use of word ‘violent’ to describe Atlanta’s ‘Night of Rage’ https://t.co/Xfwt5kVpfy pic.twitter.com/xRfueMHxmS
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) January 23, 2023
CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem attempted to draw a line between violence against humans and destruction of property. She claimed “the distinction between going after cop cars or buildings really is not a distinction that is knowable in real-time.
Kayyem added that the police do not know how it will escalate and thus have to deal with it “as if it were violence.”
Freelance writer David Peisner used CNN to question if destruction of property is actually violence. He called designating “breaking windows” or other forms of property destruction as violent acts a “dangerous and slippery concept.”
Peisner incredibly asserted that the only actual violence he witnessed was police officers tackling protesters.
Fox News was having none of this narrative. On “The Big Sunday Show,” anchor Julie Banderas flatly stated that the slanted coverage of the Atlanta riots and the 2020 destruction are part of “a war on law enforcement.”
She correctly noted that lighting cop cars on fire is hardly “nonviolent,” and if an officer is in the vehicle it’s now attempted murder. This does not fit the bill of “mostly peaceful protests.”
Despite CNN’s much-publicized attempt to move towards the political center, its true colors became glaringly obvious over the weekend. Attempts to explain away the Atlanta destruction as anything but violence only show how far the network has to go to regain respectability.
