Is This Your Terrorist or Mine?
Corporate media’s premature blaming is getting out of control
Regardless of your opinion on whether or not The White House is the right place for a UFC event, most can agree that the event itself was a bit of a dud. One of the fighters made a name for himself by arriving drunk to his own weigh in, throwing up on himself and asking the press “What are you guys looking at?” as the cameras rolled. Rain delayed the event, and the combination of alcohol and assorted party drugs led to a number of altercations and at least one brawl on the White House lawn.
Also, a group of right-wing MAGA terrorists tried to orchestrate an attack on the event, but that part didn’t get much attention. But once the terrorists were arrested, the reporting our corporate media created just so happened to reframe the terrorist part a wee bit. Here are a few sample headlines:
Fox News: “White House UFC terror plot ‘ringleader’ is a Mexican illegal immigrant, DHS confirms”
Homeland Security Today: “Alleged Ringleader of UFC Terrorist Plot is a Mexican Illegal Alien”
News Nation: “UFC terror plot ringleader received DACA immigration status under Obama:
National Review: “Alleged Leader of UFC Terror Plot Is an Illegal Immigrant Granted ‘Dreamer’ Status Under Obama”
The New York Post: “Alleged ‘ringleader’ behind White House UFC attack plot ID’d as illegal immigrant granted Dreamer status under Obama”
“This illegal alien from Mexico should never have been allowed in our country. He was the ringleader of a failed terror attack targeting UFC Freedom 250 at the White House,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “He and his co-conspirators now face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds. He will face justice and swiftly be removed from our country.”
Most of these statements and reports were filed just hours after the arrest of the alleged terrorists, and as we can see, right-wing media got its marching orders and made sure not to deviate even half a step from the party line. They said what they were told to say, and they wrote what they were told to write. And while they didn’t lie directly, their lies by omission are getting older and more tired than the despot they so often prop up. Here’s what they didn’t tell us:
While one suspect was indeed a DACA recipient, none of the headlines say anything about the motivations of the alleged terrorists. But when we read a bit deeper, we find out that they organized their failed revolution in online chat spaces, and those spaces are running over with right-wing talking points, Christian nationalism and the bigotry it covets, threats against corrupt republicans, and tons of anger about Epstein and the GOP cover-up that is currently the only thing keeping Trump and his fellow sex pests out of prison. It was a MAGA-on-MAGA crime all the way, so our corporate media pulled out all the stops to make sure they properly misrepresented it to their audience.
Every day, it is becoming more and more safe to say that our media no longer informs. It frames. It no longer tells us what happened; it tells us what powerful people want us to think happened. And while this has always been an element of American journalism, it is now the dominant motive for why our media tells us anything at all. We are no longer informed. Instead, we are influenced. Often, we are deceived.
And as long as we keep letting the Epstein Class tell us what to believe, none of this is going to change.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.