Liberal media downplays LA riots, dismiss violence as isolated while touting 'peaceful' anti-ICE protests
There has been a widespread effort by the mainstream media to downplay the rioting that has erupted in Los Angeles over the past several days in response to ICE raids targeting illegal immigrants.
ABC7 Los Angeles anchor Jory Rand went viral for cautioning law enforcement from escalating tensions by interfering in rioter vandalism.
"It could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there in the wrong way, and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers and demonstrators," Rand said.
CNN media analyst Brian Stelter has been vocal in minimizing the rioting that has taken place.
"The unrest is isolated. It has not overtaken the entire city of LA. LA is home to millions of people, most of whom are having a normal day here on Sunday," Stelter said as CNN aired a breaking news banner reading "AS L.A. RIOTS EXPAND, SO DOES MISINFORMATION."
On Monday, Stelter urged CNN viewers to "be careful" about what they see on social media.
"A lot of these algorithms are surfacing hours-old or even days-old content!" Stelter exclaimed. "So you might be looking at a video of something wondering what's happening in LA- it's actually from two days ago!… It only matters because it can give people a false impression of what's actually happening at a moment of unrest."
Stelter offered a similar sentiment on X.
"Offline, in real-world Los Angeles, most Angelenos are having a perfectly normal day. But online, the fires and riots are still raging. Seeking clicks, clout and chaos, unvetted social media accounts are preying on fears about where last weekend's clashes will lead," Stelter wrote Tuesday. "The powerful algorithms that fuel social media platforms are feeding users days-old and sometimes completely fake content about the recent unrest in L.A., contributing to a sense of nonstop crisis."
NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff acknowledged that there had been "civil unrest" and "reports of looting overnight," but stressed that isn't happening "on a wide scale" across the city.
"And I think it's important to emphasize that this is also not what was happening before the National Guard came to Los Angeles. That's the point that Governor Newsom is making," Soboroff said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Soboroff also shrugged off news coverage of the "gnarly" depiction of the protests by sharing a video of himself attending an "interfaith vigil" blocks away.
On Wednesday's installment of "Today," his NBC colleague Liz Kreutz told Savannah Guthrie that LA is "not on fire."
"You could be in Santa Monica or another part of LA and not even feel the impact of these protests," Kreutz said Wednesday. "They are very much concentrated, Savannah, to a very small pocket of downtown LA, around the federal building, around City Hall. That is where these protests are taking place right now. That is why local law enforcement believe they can handle this situation. Of course, the president is painting a different picture."
"And we should say there are some agitators and people that have been really instigating things with police. But for the most part, especially during the day, many of the protesters gathering have been peaceful," the NBC News correspondent added.
The New Yorker published a political cartoon Tuesday depicting the National Guard gathered outside LA's iconic Cinerama Dome with one saying to another, "The protesters seem to be doing some sort of joyful synchronized dance. Is it time to call in the Marines?"
On Sunday, The New York Times published a story with the headline, "Not far from tense clashes, life goes on in L.A.," touting how the Los Angeles Pride parade "went forward without delay" among other things going on in the city.
"As the first National Guard troops rumbled into Los Angeles on Sunday, summoned by the Trump administration to quell protests against an immigration crackdown, Los Angeles remained its eternal self — bigger than any one disruption. Los Angeles County, all 4,000 square miles of it, has a way of insulating and isolating mayhem, man-made or otherwise," the Times wrote. "As clashes have broken out between protesters, federal agents and police officers, life — that uniquely sunlit and serene Southern California version of it — mostly unfolded peaceably. It's not that those elsewhere were oblivious to what was happening. It's just that there was space for the one to not interrupt the other."
The ladies of ABC News' "The View" also peddled the narrative.
"It's been peaceful for days, and then suddenly these guys showed up and flipped everybody out. And so that's what my family is saying," Whoopi Goldberg said Tuesday.
"I spoke to five people that live in LA, that work in LA, and they said the protests were very, very orderly, they weren't violent, and they occurred in about a four-block radius, and we all know how large LA is," Sunny Hostin followed. "And so, in my view, there is no crisis in Los Angeles that ICE did not cause. That is the fact of the matter, right?"
On Tuesday, ABC's LA-based late-night host Jimmy Kimmel declared "there's no riot outside" and suggested the media is hyping the unrest while blasting President Donald Trump for sending in the National Guard.
"Someone sets a fire in a garbage can, 12 camera crews go running toward it," Kimmel asserted. "Trump wants it to seem like anarchy, so he goes around our governor and calls in 4,000 troops from the National Guard and 700 active-duty Marines. When we had the wildfires that devastated big chunks of our city, he did absolutely nothing. Now that we're in the middle of a non-emergency, send in the National Guard!"
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