Great article but it's so depressing that it starts with disinformation by claiming Trump said it is a great day for Floyd due to unemployment numbers (actually discussed completely separately in that speech). He said it's a great day due to increasing equality. [0]
Twisting someone's words to make them look worse in a piece that rightly blames others for doing so is just sad. So I am asking again - Why do even the sensible ones do this? Why can't we have some honesty and objectivity?
There is a very long history of mainstream media taking a Trump quote, not just out of context, but actively rewriting it to mean the exact opposite of what he is saying.
From Charlottesville to this, you can safely bet that anything reconciliatory that Trump says will be twisted into something divisive through intentionally misreporting what was said.
This is the actual quote. The fact is that he made this remark during a press conference which also discussed jobs numbers;
“Equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement regardless of race, color, gender, or creed," Trump said. "They have to receive fair treatment from law enforcement. They have to receive it. We all saw what happened last week. We can't let that happen. Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, 'This is a great day that's happening for our country.' It's a great day for him. It's a great day for everybody. This is a great day for everybody. This is a great day in terms of equality. It's really what our Constitution requires and it's what our country is all about."
When I read this quote I hear Trump praising the protests and supporting the cause of equal treatment under the law and ending police brutality. The mass media reported the statement as, among other things, “revolting”. [1]
The best account of the current trajectory of the media landscape I have found is in what was meant to be a sci-fi story called American Goldmine by Paolo Bacigalupi published here ;
The article does have an ambiguous "and" in the relevant sentence but it's a bit of a far stretch to get from that to the paraphrase you provide.
Here is the literal quote from the article: "Calls to “dominate” marchers and ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers (“only” 21 million out of work!) were pure gasoline at a tinderbox moment. The man seems determined to talk us into civil war."
I'd believe it if there weren't so many inaccurate reports claiming exactly that. His wording:
>"..ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers.."
very much sounds like he thinks the same, and a majority of the readership familiar with the story are going to read it that way even if you can be extremely charitable and say that this isn't what he meant.
I know he is familiar with the reporting on this, so if he didn't mean it I doubt he'd be so ambigous in that statement.
I think you're missing the point. It's an opinion piece (aka editorial, or blog post in this case) and not a news article. Of course, you can disagree with his interpretation.
Twisting someone's words to make them look worse in a piece that rightly blames others for doing so is just sad. So I am asking again - Why do even the sensible ones do this? Why can't we have some honesty and objectivity?
0. https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-press-conf...