On Wednesday, Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann filed a lawsuit against NBC Universal for a whopping $275 million. The defamation suit was his third and largest he had filed against an unaccountable media giant (the others were against The Washington Post and CNN).
In an appearance on the Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight Thursday, Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway assessed that the reason Sandmann enjoyed such broad support was that “people sense the injustice” done to him by a vicious liberal media.
Hemingway noted that if someone were to analyze why the media pounced on Sandmann “it would not make the media look very good.” She explained:
They liked this story because it was the way to make a March for Life – an event they do not cover year after year despite, the fact, that hundreds of thousands of people attend it each year in Washington, D.C. It was a way to make the March for Life look bad. It was a way to make Donald Trump voters or supporters look bad. And so, it was convenient, it fit a narrative that they would like to perpetuate.
“And if they were to look at their own biases and how those biases can lead to really bad news, they might to start to think about other issues they have covered poorly,” she added. Her other examples were the “Russian collusion hoax that went on for years and caused real damage to the country” and the smearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
She further deduced that “currently, there aren't any repercussions really for getting stories completely wrong. And you’re seeing this where the media feels sort of empowered to snare people including, in this case, a child…”
After Carlson noted that the upside of the lawsuit was that “it really kind of offers a very clear explanation of a fraudulent story.” Hemingway decried how the media did this to Sandmann for “ratings” and “money.” “They said false things about this boy and his school that were demonstrably untrue and right now there's not a lot of accountability for this,” she said.
“People sense the injustice of that and they want to see some people finally take responsibility for it,” she concluded. “And I hope someone finally does,” Carlson agreed.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight
May 2, 2019
8:21:33 p.m. EasternTUCKER CARLSON: Nick Sandmann of Covington High School in Kentucky is suing NBC for $275 million for its coverage of his confrontation with Nathan Phillips, the supposedly tribal leader, Vietnam veteran, at the Lincoln Memorial. The lawsuit says, correctly, that NBC helped promote the fake storyline that Sandmann to intimidate Phillips, later footage revealed exactly the opposite, as usual. Phillips came up and confronted Sandmann who was simply standing there.
Even after it was clear exactly what happened, because there were multiple tapes and it showed the same thing, Sandmann went on the Today show and the host badgered him like he was the aggressor.
(…)
CARLSON: Something aggressive about standing there. Mollie Hemingway has said that for years, she’s a senior editor at the Federalist and she joins us tonight. Something aggressive about you sitting there, Mollie.
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Apparently.
CARLSON: I feel intimidated. So, does this – This lawsuit, I mean, I guess the upside is that it really kind of offers a very clear explanation of a fraudulent story.
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Right, and it’s not the first of these lawsuits that have been filed. There have been two others against two other media outlets. And what’s important it and why it’s interesting and why people are paying attention is, currently there aren't any repercussions really for getting stories completely wrong.
And you’re seeing this where the media feels sort of empowered to snare people including, in this case, a child, who had come out to Washington, D.C., for the March for Life and they did this over the course of days. They said false things about this boy and his school that were demonstrably untrue and right now there's not a lot of accountability for this. They do these false stores, they get ratings, they get money and they never really are held accountable for it.
CARLSON: And no one pauses to kind of reverse engineer it. How did this happen? How did this-- It began on a weekend. It is not really a news story, is it? I mean, there’s a lot going on in the world. The networks were all over this like it was the most important thing.
HEMINGWAY: I think because, if you were to look into how this happened, it would not make the media look very good.
They liked this story because it was the way to make a March for Life – an event they do not cover year after year despite, the fact, that hundreds of thousands of people attend it each year in Washington, D.C. It was a way to make the March for Life look bad. It was a way to make Donald Trump voters or supporters look bad. And so, it was convenient, it fit a narrative that they would like to perpetuate.
And if they were to look at their own biases and how those biases can lead to really bad news, they might to start to think about other issues they have covered poorly. I mean, you just – in the earlier part of the show, we’re talking about this Russian collusion hoax that went on for years and caused real damage to the country, including our foreign policy, administration of government, and you're not even having people take accountability for that.
Or the other people have been like Brett Kavanaugh, who when he was going through his confirmation battle. So, they don't want to look into it because I think the entire edifice would come crumbling down.
CARLSON: All the destroyed lives and no one ever stops to say, “while, we just wrecked someone's life. He’ll never work again. We’re responsible for that.”
HEMINGWAY: That is why this story resonated so much with Nicholas Sandmann. They’ve done it to people who are adults, they’ve done it to people they think deserve it. Donald Trump, you can do whatever you want to him, or conservatives, or Republicans. This was a boy, a teenage boy who was doing something good and got smeared as going something bad. People sense the injustice of that and they want to see some people finally take responsibility for it.
CARLSON: And I hope someone finally does.
