Both Fox News and CNN felt some of the protesters’ frustration as they gathered and marched across the country for a fourth straight night over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Late Friday night, Fox News reporter Leland Vittert was taunted with “Fuck Fox News” chants near the White House while on-air. Vittert acknowledged the heckling during the broadcast, saying, “We have some media critics out here.” He was then followed by protesters who continued to scream expletives at him after his report was interrupted.
Protestors at the White House realize Leland Vittert works for Fox News, chase him out of Lafayette Square shouting "FUCK FOX NEWS": pic.twitter.com/KQc29PFEPe — Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) May 30, 2020
The front of the CNN Center in Atlanta was also met by protesters who damaged the building, vandalized the station’s logo, broke windows and, according to CNN, a SWAT team was called to control the crowd. During the live coverage, a protester tossed a firecracker, causing a loud explosion, leading one of the on-scene reporters to yell “shit” during CNN’s broadcast.
Glass getting broken outside the main entrance to CNN's Atlanta headquarters; protesters cheer pic.twitter.com/EToiEj5Pom — Fernando Alfonso III (@fernalfonso) May 29, 2020
At least 20 states saw organized protests on Friday. Some were peaceful, but many turned dangerous as protesters expressed outrage in the wake of police brutality and a lack of charges for the other officers involved in the killing of Floyd.
In Atlanta, protesters burned a police car, and officers dodged smoke bombs during protests around the city. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms denounced some of the crowd’s actions, calling the protests “chaos.”
“What I see happening on the streets of Atlanta is not Atlanta. This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. This is chaos,” Bottoms said.
Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp activated 500 National Guard troops, “to protect people & property in Atlanta,” the governor announced via Twitter.
In New York City, hundreds gathered outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn where protesters threw bottles and several demonstrators set a police van on fire. According to the Wall Street Journal, dozens were arrested and both officers and protesters were injured.
Late Friday night, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called for calm while tweeting, “We don’t ever want to see another night like this.”
We have a long night ahead of us in Brooklyn. Our sole focus is deescalating this situation and getting people home safe. There will be a full review of what happened tonight. We don’t ever want to see another night like this. — Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) May 30, 2020
In Washington, D.C., the White House was placed on lockdown as demonstrations continued after 3 a.m. Eastern Time. According to the Washington Post, the crowds gathered there were chanting “Black lives matter” and dispersed after U.S. Park Police and uniformed Secret Service officers “used what appeared to be gasses and sprays” to push the protesters out of Lafayette Square Park near the White House.
Protests also continued in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed, and the president ordered active-duty U.S. military police units standby to deploy to the city.
On Saturday morning, President Trump tried to delegitimize the protesters on Twitter, calling them “so-called ‘protesters’” while praising the work of the Secret Service. He then went on to say that the protesters “would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen” had they successfully broken through the White House fence. He also accused D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser of not letting Metropolitan Police get involved, which was not true. According to CNN, D.C. police were on scene in addition to several other law enforcement agencies.
It is truly disturbing that a time when our nation is suffering from a global pandemic and systemic oppression, the president is stoking the flames and doing everything he possibly can to divide the country in two, deliberately pushing it toward violence.
….got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard – didn’t know what hit them. The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would…. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2020
….good practice.” As you saw last night, they were very cool & very professional. Never let it get out of hand. Thank you! On the bad side, the D.C. Mayor, @MurielBowser, who is always looking for money & help, wouldn’t let the D.C. Police get involved. “Not their job.” Nice! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2020
EE_Tim on May 30th, 2020 at 16:38 UTC »
Fox is propaganda. They push fear and hate in order to exact their agenda. Remember those migrant caravans they were saying would come raping their way through the US if you didn't vote republican? After the elections, nothing more about those caravans.
Fox viewers are out of touch with reality. In fact, that is borne out by the data.
Amongst many major sources for news (even including social media as a news source), Fox News viewers are far and away of a wholly opinion of reality than any other group.
44% of Fox viewers think the media reporting on SARS-CoV-2 is 'largely inaccurate,' where the next highest is amongst CNN viewers at 12%, showing that Fox viewers think they are the only ones with correct information. [source] 58% of Fox viewers think that the media reporting on SARS-CoV-2 has hurt the country.[source] 48% of Fox viewers think the pandemic has been overemphasized in the media, in stark contrast to any other news source. [source] 47% of Fox viewers think SARS-CoV-2 is a minor threat, in stark contrast to any other news source. [source] 47% of Fox News viewers said COVID-19 is a minor threat, where those of any other news organization is 28% from ABC viewers. [source] 63% of Fox viewers, again in stark contrast to any other news source, think that Trump has done an excellent job in his response to the outbreak. [source] 66% of Fox viewers are very confident Trump is doing a good job, the next highest rating from any other source is 18%. [source]There's a lot of information that shows Fox viewers are simply not in touch with reality
This makes sense when you consider that Fox News was explicitly created to prevent another Nixon. Looks like it's working out for them, almost half the country's citizens would rather sellout the country than rebuke a corrupt president.
The memo that birthed Fox News explicitly states their purpose up front:
But why would they want to use TV to push their pro-administration spin? Well, the memo answers that too:
Fox News bets on you being too lazy to understand so they opt to do the thinking for you.
2_Sheds_Jackson on May 30th, 2020 at 15:19 UTC »
I am sure the President will step in and do his best to calm everyone down. Any minute now.
Ok, so I guess threatening citizens is what passes for presidential now.
BraveSignal on May 30th, 2020 at 14:35 UTC »
The video I saw was a retweet from a Daily Caller "journalist" on the ground with them. He made sure to put in that this was an example of "protestors attacking the press."
Uh huh. Literally the same day, the state arrested members of the press and folks at FN had a big laugh about it. Not to mention the protestors in Atlanta that vandalized the CNN building. They had a nice laugh about it.
They have constantly stoked the fear, anxieties, and hatred within people and amplified towards journalists and members of the media. They shouldn't be too surprised when people are fucking fed up.
So if you happen to see this line today:
Oh it looks like the protestors are attacking the media. Thugs.First of all, don't engage those people because they don't want to be engaged. They are saying it so they can have some other person with a lot of flags or numbers in their names retweet it and say how right they are. But also don't engage because it's a game they are playing and it's a game with rules they dictate and change on a whim. Let them yell about it and ignore them.
EDIT: Quick point, FN morning shows made light of Jiminez's arrest, which is definitely not their journalistic wing which did condemn this action. However, I would point out that FN has been happy to join trump in attacking figures he attacks and cheer him on for it. So... I don't feel bad this happened to them.