Alright, we continue …
Like children who are fooled by Santa, the news media have once again been deceived by a clearly erroneous story that fits their favorite narrative about race. Last year, it was the failure of Jussie Smollett, where I was one of the first media commentators to mention a lack of credibility, today, in a very different but similar story, we have learned that, in contrast to the media’s enormous and morally angry anger, Black NASCAR racer Bubba Wallace is not a victim of racial crime related to snares.
For those who somehow missed it, over the weekend NASCAR dramatically and declaratively announced that Wallace had been the target of “snares” found in his garage on the Talladega Expressway in Alabama. This was before the big race on the track that took place on Monday.
When I first heard that story, I assumed there must be a photo of the snares that were questioned, and was very curious to see how someone could be so terrible, and also so stupid, to do something so racist to a black driver. However, it quickly became clear that there were no public photos, and my senses began to tell me that there was something about this story that was not true.
This is my first tweet that asks people, and especially the media, not to rush to judge stories where there may be other scenarios that make more sense than narratives that have been widely reported, as if they were facts that could be certified: “Because many stories related to snares turn into fraud / misunderstanding, there must be skepticism here. That is a garage. The rope tied like that won’t even be seen at other people’s stalls or at other times. There is certainly no time to wait for facts before assuming racism! “Not surprisingly, I was attacked on Twitter for the next two days because, at best, stupid, and at worst, racist.
However, the lack of photos is so inexplicable that it seems clear to me that this could be a misunderstanding (assuming that if the snare / scene is really unambiguous, we will definitely see the photo immediately). In these times of extreme racial tensions, and after NASCAR had just announced that they had actually banned the Confederate Flag from its events, I think someone might have seen a simple rope with an open knot at the end, panicked, and then when the narration “snares” began, there is no way to hold them back, especially in the current media atmosphere (for context, there have been two snare stories here in California over the past week that turned out not to be hate crime).
Unfortunately, modern news media, especially sports media, do not stop for a moment to consider other possible explanations, especially on stories that fit their agenda. ESPN in particular now seems to have only one piece of equipment, and no brakes, when it comes to reacting to stories that have an element of racism or sexual harassment against them.
So, led by ESPN, instead of doing basic journalism and waiting for at least some actual facts to enter, the entire complex of industrial media rushes to judge and allow the giving of signals of virtue to completely transcend a sense of rationality, or even basic common sense. It never even occurred to them that, with very limited track access due to COVID-19, capturing someone who did this would be very easy and, therefore, someone who works in the NASCAR community must be willing to destroy their entire life to make a very moving stupid and racist.
But having no photographs, no rational theories about how or why this happened, and no suspects, are no longer a barrier for modern news media to invest in compelling narratives, no matter how reasonable. In this regard, given the racial problem perceived by NASCAR, and the fact that this is happening in Alabama, it makes it easy for critical thinking in liberal media (and yes, sports media is at least as liberal as “mainstream” media) to be immediately thrown out the window car.
There are people who will, sincerely, argue that this failure is actually NASCAR’s fault for telling the news media that this is a snare and that the FBI is now investigating. Doesn’t the news media rely solely on what is told to them by an organization that has no incentive to say that there is a snare found in Wallace’s garage?
In short, no. And, moving forward, this is perhaps the most important aspect of this whole controversy.
In my vast and unique experience, there is very little that the modern news media is worse than interpreting the personal interests of individuals and large organizations appropriately. In this case, NASCAR really has a great incentive to embrace the “snare” narrative entirely because the cost of not doing it, and being seen as weak in their responses, will be a major disaster, especially in this environment with increasing racial tensions.
In fact, if there was a conspiracy here, the possibility of NASCAR jumping over a narrative that it knew was untrue (because it quickly became clear that ALL garages in Talladega had “snares” – used to close garage doors, it seemed unbelievable that no one there had strong suspicion that this is not really a snare), because they know it will protect them from what will inevitably be an intense media attack, as well as promoting popular black drivers. They might deliberately turn it over to the FBI to let them be “bad guys” to tell the kids in the media (who say “shocked” all over Twitter after the findings of the investigation are easily announced) that it’s not actually real.
Will there be accountability for this massive and easily avoided media malpractice act? Will there be an apology to NASCAR fans and Alabama people who are considered racist enough to commit, or at least allow, such heinous acts? Will there be lessons from the news media?
Unfortunately, but predictably, the answers to these important questions will most likely be negative. No one in the big media was fired for misinterpreting news programs again, at least not if they were misdirected, and the ratings for the story were good.
What happened here will definitely happen again, especially in the world of sports. In large part because those in the elite media, especially white men, are so afraid of being canceled because they don’t get up enough that they would rather follow the media herd and be proven wrong, rather than abandon protection from media gangs, and risk being hit, even if (especially ?) they are right.
John Ziegler is a senior columnist for Mediaite, from which this column was adapted.
Indonesia: @Zigmanfreud
