We’ve had Jussie Smollett, Nicholas Sandmann, and numerous others. Whenever there is a public accusation of racial impropriety, bad-faith media actors leap into action.
This time, it involved black volleyball players from Duke University. Some of these players claimed that several members of the BYU student cheering section were hurling racist epithets and slurs. Specifically, Duke’s Rachel Richardson claimed she heard such insults when she stepped back to serve. This was good enough for CNN’s Brianna Keilar and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, as well as the Atlantic’s Jemele Hill (who practically makes a living off such episodes). Nominally unbiased (very nominally) news outlets such as NPR also ran with the accusation, once again without corroboration.
