Conservatives accuse media organizations of trafficking in stereotypes that Trump supporters are bigots. Is there any merit to that claim?
Two recent incidents have strengthened conservatives’ belief that liberal journalists are implacably opposed to Donald Trump and his supporters: the 18 January encounter between a group of Kentucky students and a Native American activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and the claims by Jussie Smollett that he had been attacked by hoodlums shouting racist and anti-gay slurs. In both cases, conservatives say, journalists – based on flimsy evidence – trafficked in stereotypes that Trump supporters are vulgar bigots.
Is there any merit to these claims? Of the two cases, Smollett’s seems less revealing. If it is true (as the Chicago police now say) that he orchestrated the attack on himself, it can only be considered the twisted product of a warped mind. The initial reports about the incident were so troubling that even President Trump condemned it as “horrible”. Journalists – relying on police sources and quickly correcting the story as it unfolded – performed more or less responsibly.
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