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WATCH: Shapiro On Media’s Blanket Coverage Of Smollett’s Claims: It Fit Their Narrative

   DailyWire.com

On Tuesday, Daily Wire Editor-In-Chief Ben Shapiro appeared on Fox’s “The Daily Briefing With Dana Perino,” and explained why the media was so eager to cover the Jussie Smollett story while totally ignoring an attack on a Jewish man in Brooklyn that occured within 24 hours of the Smollett attack and was even caught on videotape. Shapiro pointed out that the Smollett story fit a narrative that the media prefer, that America is racist, bigoted and homophobic, and that Trump supporters are awful people, while the attack on the Jewish man defied the media’s narrative because it wasn’t committed by white supremacists.

Perino began by referencing the difference in media attention between the vast coverage of the Jussie Smollett story and the absolute lack of coverage of the attack on a Jewish man in Brooklyn. She turned to Shapiro, saying, “We want to get your take on this, Ben, because you wrote about this yesterday, and it was pretty stark, when you look at the differences.”

Shapiro explained why the media gave blanket coverage to the Smollet story while ignoring the attack on the Jewish man:

Absolutely: one of these assaults was caught on tape; the other turns out to be a complete hoax. The amount of attention paid to the assault on the Jewish man in New York was nil; the media legitimately did not cover it. The amount of attention on Jussie Smollett, of course, was enormous, and that’s because there’s a narrative to be promoted. Jonathan Kay, part of The Washington Post, nearly admitted this on MSNBC; he essentially said that a lot of people bought into the Jussie Smollett narrative, which is that Trump supporters are stalking black people all around America to beat them, seeking to harass them, and this was a perfect story. Now, when a story is too perfect to be true, it usually is, and this is one of those cases.

But the real question is why hate crimes in New York, which have been up dramatically this year, largely targeting Jews in New York City, have not been covered.

Perino commented: “We have some numbers, if I could just show; in New York, in 2018, you see steady attacks at 186 last year. And then, that’s not just New York, Ben, as you know; across the nation in 2017 alone. That seems to me, like that’s a national emergency.

Shapiro responded:

Certainly, if you’re going to look at the groups most targeted in hate crimes across the United States on a per capita basis, Jews are twice as likely to be targeted as African-Americans. They are twice as likely to be targeted as gay Americans. The idea that the real threat, when it comes to hate crimes, is largely directed against blacks or against gay folks in the United States — listen, every hate crime is obviously awful and evil, but it’s amazing that the media ignore one form of hate crime. And the reason is — The New York Times admitted this. They said, yeah we’ve had a spate of crimes against Jews in New York City; we don’t cover it because it doesn’t fit our ideological narrative. The people who are doing these assaults are not white supremacists.

He continued, ”Not one of the hate crimes in New York City has been linked to white supremacy.” He returned to the media’s perspective, saying, “And so, we basically, we just ignore it, because it doesn’t fit the narrative that we want to tell.”

Shapiro pointed out why reporting on the series of attacks on Jews was counterproductive to the media’s agenda:

And beyond that, the idea of Jews as victims in United States is on its face boldly absurd, because Jews are such disproportionate winners in the American system. Jews are disproportionately well educated, disproportionately wealthy. And so, if we were to look at hate crimes and say, “Okay, well, we’re going to judge by hate crimes which groups are most victimized,” then it doesn’t make any sense, because Jews are not actually supremely victimized in the United States.” So in order to maintain the idea that America is a racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic place, what you actually have to do is ignore hate crimes against the group most likely to be targeted and instead focus on groups less likely to be targeted in order to maintain the narrative.

Perino asked, “How does this play in 2020? I want to take you to a tweet from Kamala Harris; she’s the senator from the state where you are from; she’s a 2020 candidate. On January 29, she tweeted, ‘This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.’ Yesterday she was asked this; watch this.”

Perino then played a clip of Harris being asked about the tweet, showing her answering, “I think the facts are still unfolding, and I’m very, um, concerned about obviously the initial, um, allegation, that he made about what might have happened and it’s something that we should all take seriously whenever anyone, um, alleges that kind of behavior, but there should be an investigation, and I think that, um, once the investigation is concluded then we can all comment.”

Perino commented, “It’s interesting to me, Ben, because she’s a former prosecutor, and she was there in California, and she surely came across cases like this where you had to have a little bit of skepticism while also having some care and compassion for the victim that is claiming they’ve been attacked.”

Shapiro replied:

Absolutely. I do love the idea that “the facts are now unfolding.” When this first broke, and there were serious questions to be asked about the account, which was, on its face, rather absurd, and she was immediately jumping to “this is a modern-day lynching”; now, the day that it all falls apart, suddenly we have to “wait for the facts to unfold.” Well, that tells you the narrative that Kamala Harris and so many on the Left want to promote, which is that the Jussie Smollett story is happening, the actual story is happening all over the United States. Cory Booker said something very similar, and so if this thing falls apart, then we just sort of pretend that this never was an issue in the first place? And then we look for other instances to prove that America is a really terrible place and that Trump supporters are really, really awful people. I do love Kamala Harris basically running away from her own tweet there. I mean, it’s really funny, when she’s asked by a reporter not to don a rainbow-sequined jacket …

Perino concluded, “You also need to make sure everyone should be in charge of their own tweets. That’s my general rule and advice. Free of charge today.”

Video below:

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