Burying the lede, libel, and indictment

Gaige Grosskreutz testified last week he was shot by Rittenhouse only after he, Grosskreutz, charged at the now 18-year-old Illinoisan brandishing a loaded firearm.

“So, when you were standing 3 to 5 feet from him with your arms up in the air, he never fired, right?” asked defense attorney Corey Chirafisi.

“Correct,” Grosskreutz said.

“It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him with your gun — now, your hands down, pointed at him — that he fired, right?” Chirafisi asked.

“Correct,” responded Grosskreutz, whose concealed-carry permit had expired at the time of the shooting.

This is a significant admission. According to one of the men he shot, Rittenhouse acted in self-defense in at least one of the shootings.

One would think newsrooms eager to shed light on the facts of what happened that night in Wisconsin, eager to answer the question of whether Rittenhouse is guilty of murder, would highlight this particular moment from Grosskreutz’s testimony.

One would be wrong. Very wrong.

“The man who survived being shot by Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last August testified on Monday that he never tried to kill the heavily-armed teenager,” reported the Daily Beast. “In fact, he said at the teen’s murder trial, he was actually trying to surrender to him.”

NBC News reported in its headline, “Kyle Rittenhouse shooting victim says he thought he was ‘going to die.’” The story’s subhead adds: “Gaige Grosskreutz, a licensed paramedic from suburban Milwaukee, said he went to Wisconsin to help treat people hurt in protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.”

The New York Times reported, “Man Shot by Kyle Rittenhouse Describes the Encounter on a Kenosha Street.”

The story’s opening lines read, “Gaige Grosskreutz, the only person who survived being shot by Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020, took the witness stand on Monday and described the instant he faced Mr. Rittenhouse, who had just fired several shots with a semiautomatic rifle. ‘What was going through your mind at this particular moment?’ Thomas Binger, the prosecutor, asked in court. ‘That I was going to die,’ Mr. Grosskreutz, a volunteer paramedic, said.”

The part where Grosskreutz revealed he was shot only after he pointed a loaded firearm at Rittenhouse isn’t even mentioned until the report’s ninth paragraph.

This is known in the business as “burying the lede.”

The only thing that matters insofar as the Rittenhouse trial is concerned is whether the defendant acted in self-defense. Determining the facts of the case should be the press’s chief and only concern. In the case of Grosskreutz specifically, it certainly sounds as if Rittenhouse was justified in firing his rifle. Yet, from following the press’s coverage of Grosskreutz’s testimony, you’d never know this. You know only that Grosskreutz was frightened.

Service journalism, everyone.

Libel

CBS News has some explaining to do.

The network tweeted and then deleted a news alert last week claiming Kyle Rittenhouse admitted to murdering two men last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

“Kyle Rittenhouse testified in his murder trial yesterday, breaking down in tears as he told the jury he murdered two men at a Black Lives Matter protest last year in self-defense,” the network declared.

Rittenhouse said no such thing. He likewise has not been convicted of murder. Rittenhouse is on trial precisely so that a jury of his peers may determine an answer to the question of his innocence. This is the entire point of the trial CBS is attempting to cover: to determine whether Rittenhouse did indeed “murder” two men that night in Wisconsin. Sure, Rittenhouse is accused of murder, but it is both inaccurate and incredibly irresponsible, especially as the trial is still going, to claim he admitted to murder.

It’s almost as if the press are trying to whip public sentiment in a particular direction ahead of the verdict.

Also, “protest” is an awfully misleading way to describe the conditions in Kenosha on the night of the shootings. It wasn’t a “protest.” It was a riot.

Other than these issues, this is some fine journalism by CBS. Just a bang-up job all around, fellas.

An indictment on the press

Former State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus deserves a lot of praise for challenging Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California last week to defend the falsehoods and rumors he promoted during the Russia collusion craze. She deserves a lot of praise for taking the congressman to task for his relentless promotion of the Steele dossier, which is almost certainly a work of pure fiction if not outright Russian counterintelligence propaganda.

However, as great a moment as it was for accountability that Schiff, who repeatedly claimed to have seen conclusive evidence proving former President Donald Trump conspired with Moscow to steal the 2016 presidential election, was finally put in the hot seat, it’s impossible not to review the interaction without also feeling a certain amount of anger and resentment for the corporate press.

“Do you have any reflections on your role in promoting [the dossier] to the American people?” Ortagus asked Schiff during an exchange on The View.

“Well,” responded the Democratic lawmaker, “first of all, whoever lied to the FBI or lied to Christopher Steele should be prosecuted, and they are, and unlike in the Trump administration, if they’re convicted, they should go to jail and not be pardoned.”

Ortagus persisted, pressing Schiff to defend his behavior, “You saw this information for years by promoting this. That’s what Republicans and what people who entrusted you as the [Intelligence Committee] chair are so confused about your culpability in all of this.”

He added, “Let’s not use that as a smokescreen to somehow shield Donald Trump’s culpability for inviting Russia to help him in the election, which they did, trying to force Ukraine into helping him in the next election, which he did, into inciting an insurrection, which he did. None of that is undercut. None of that serious misconduct is in any way diminished by the fact that people lied to Christopher Steele.”

“No,” Ortagus responded. “I think just your credibility is.”

Good for her. Also, shame on the press.

For starters, why did it fall to a former State Department spokeswoman to ask Schiff basic questions regarding the role he played in perpetuating the yearslong collusion dud? Why did it take for a grilling from Ortagus for Schiff to explain his irresponsible handling of the collusion allegations, especially when there’s a small army of reporters who typically hang on to his every word? Are the newspapers that won Pulitzers for their collusion coverage, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, simply too busy to follow-up on the supposed bombshells Schiff hyped for more than two years?

Secondly, as embarrassing as it is for corporate journalists that Ortagus did their job for them, it’s even more embarrassing that her questions came during Schiff’s appearance on The View, of all places.

Two years, Pulitzer Prizes, hundreds of white-knuckled shocking headlines, empty promises, and unfounded rumors, and it took for a guest host on a daytime women’s talk show to ask the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to defend the role he played in promoting allegations of a criminal conspiracy that ultimately went nowhere.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The Washington Post and the New York Times should take a page from disgraced former Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke’s book and return the Pulitzers they won for their ultimately pointless and very likely Kremlin-manipulated coverage of the conspiracy allegations against the former president. Do the right thing.