The networks went out of their way to protect violent left wing mobs like Antifa rioting and looting this past weekend, by insisting they were the outliers in demonstrations that happened across the country, protesting the death of George Floyd. While showcasing the violent riots, all three of the major networks still argued repeatedly that these "protests" were “mostly peaceful,” as you can see in the video below.
On ABC’s Good Morning America Monday, correspondent Eva Pilgrim spoke lovingly of the “mostly peaceful” “beautiful” protests:
And I just want to reiterate, most of the protests that we saw this weekend were peaceful. One woman told me she couldn't help but notice how beautiful it all was but she, like many, says she was worried about what would happen, when the sun went down.
Co-anchor Robin Roberts backed up Pilgrim’s assessment in another report: “ Although many of the protests have been peaceful, we can't emphasize that enough, this morning authorities are investigating who's behind the more violent ones,” she touted.
Later on, Roberts repeated this line while trying to comfort George Floyd’s brother saying, “And he would appreciate that the majority of the protests have been peaceful.”
We heard the same mantra repeated on each network.
On CBS This Morning, co-anchor Gayle King teased “how some of the largely peaceful protests turned violent,” to start the show. Later on, in a conversation with former NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, King emphasized that “for the most part, these protests are peaceful:”
You say for those who say the looters are hurting the cause, you said you're not wrong, but you're also not right. And I think it's so important, Kareem, to make the distinction between for the most part these protests are peaceful. Where a lot of attention is focused on the looting and the burning of the police cars. And I just don't want the message to be lost about what is at stake here
Two of CBS’s correspondents, Jeff Pegues and Jericka Duncan respectively, also back up King’s statements by repeating in separate reports that “most protests remained peaceful” and “ there have been mostly peaceful demonstrations with many hoping that their voices won't be silenced because of what we're seeing.”
Over on NBC’s Today show, co-anchor Craig Melvin also took a deliberate step to distinguish between violent rioters and nonviolent protesters:
It should be noted that the demonstration here in Washington and this is the case around much of the country as well. Those demonstrations were largely peaceful. In fact it was peaceful here until the sun went down.
While it is fine for the media to make the distinction between violent rioters and nonviolent protesters, the fact of the matter is, this kind of grace would not be shown if it were right-wing groups causing mass chaos cross the country, in an alternate reality. You can be sure that reporters wouldn’t go out of their way to hype the peaceful protesters. We know this, because even singular rallies and protests, such as the gun rights one in Richmond, Virginia last January, resulted in zero violence, yet the media still stirred up hatred and strife by calling them racists and predicting that there would be gun violence. More recently, the lockdown protesters were also demonized by the media as racist Nazis who wanted people to die from coronavirus, even though no violence came from those protests either and the media has now conveniently forgotten about the pandemic as masses riot without wearing masks or socially-distancing.
