What follows is an object lesson in why year-end best, worst and other lists shouldn't be published until the year actually ends.
A Kwanzaa "parade" was held in Los Angeles yesterday. In reporting on the event, CBS Los Angeles published a work of fiction (saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) which absolutely belongs on any 2014 list of most embarrassing moments in journalism (HT Twitchy; bolds are mine):
LA Celebrates Start Of Kwanzaa With Parade Along Crenshaw Boulevard
The 38th annual KwanZaa Gwaride parade made its way down Crenshaw Boulevard Friday, marking the start of the seven-day festival of Kwanzaa.
The gwaride, which is the Swahili word for parade, brought together members of L.A.’s African-American community as they turn their focus on “Nguzo Saba,” the Seven Principles behind Kwanzaa: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.
Organizers named the theme of this year’s parade “Perfect YOUR Temple,” or body. They said it was “a call to arms in our constant and ongoing efforts to `perfect’ our lives.”
The gwaride began at the corner of Crenshaw and Adams boulevards, headed south along Crenshaw to Leimert Park, where organizers held a “Black Lives Matter” rally.
Some participants walked the parade carrying signs underlining important issues to the community, such as police brutality, home foreclosures, judicial corruption, transparency in government and environmental racism.
... Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, now chair of Africana Studies at Cal State Long Beach, in what he called “an audacious act of self-determination.”
So from all appearances, according to CBS-LA, there was a legitimate Kwanzaa parade in South LA yesterday with "participants" and a "rally."
Except there really wasn't anything meaningful that that a normal person who understands the meaning of the word would call a parade — and the person who tweeted to that effect from the "event" works for CBS-LA:
Two minutes later, the station's Greg Mills additionally tweeted that "#Kwanza Parade is over. #CrenshawBlvd is re-opened to traffic."
Twitchy tells us that blogger "Sooper Mexican estimated that four people attended the post-parade “Black Lives Matter” rally at Leimert Park. In an update, however, he downgraded this estimate to three."
A procession of a few vehicles lasting 10 minutes is not a "parade." It isn't even a motorcade.
Three or four people listening to aggrieved speakers droning on about how "black lives matter" (others, apparently not so much) isn't a "rally"; it's a collection of unhinged soapbox rants.
Yet readers of the CBS-LA report who don't get information about the failed enterprise from another source will believe that a legitimate "parade" and "rally" took place with and implied respectable numbers of participants — despite what the station's own reporter tweeted.
One of those other sources of information about the event will apparently not include the Los Angeles Times. A search on "Kwanzaa" at the Times indicates the the paper stopped covering the embarrassing event in 2012. In 2011, the Times claimed that "hundreds" gathered for that year's extravaganza, but the photo provided with the writeup only showed about a half-dozen people in some kind of dance formation, with perhaps a half-dozen or a few more onlookers. After 2012, even the Times apparently reached its limit on the degree of sham reporting it would tolerate. CBS-LA would do well to follow suit in the future.
As to the real history behind Kwanzaa — not the politically correct claptrap CBS-LA predictably fell for — retired professor Warren Beatty (i.e., not the lefty actor) has a concise and definitive writeup at American Thinker explaining why this scam holiday really needs to be sent to history's dustbin. At FrontPageMag.com in 2002, Paul Mulshine thoroughly exposed Kwanzaa creator Maulana Karenga's violent, misognynistic, and now virtually hidden criminal past.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
