On Sunday's MediaBuzz on Fox News Channel, talk show host Richard Fowler came on to lament the racial backwardness of America. Fox host Howard Kurtz asked if the anger of blacks at police mistreatment or racism causes the press to make excuses for looting or violence. Then Fowler said something obviously untrue.
RICHARD FOWLER: I'll say this. I think the majority -- 99.9% of these protests have been peaceful. I know folks that went to one. I'm going to one this afternoon, because we're calling for justice.
This came on the same day as everyone else discussed the troubling spread of looting and rioting to cities across America. By Sunday night, CNN's Brian Stelter summarized in his newsletter: "This is the worst weekend of civil unrest in America since the 1960s. Right now it's not showing any signs of abating." His headline was "United States of Anguish." Stelter answered Kurtz's question, that violence was portrayed as a sign of America's terrible record on race.
Columnist Jennifer Senior said it best on Sunday: "We can't see the African Americans dying of Covid inside our hospitals, but we can see George Floyd cruelly singled out for asphyxiation in the street. His death is a symbol of the obscene inequality and racial hostility of this moment."
After his transparently false statement, Fowler insisted the most violent elements in Minneapolis were from out of town, and fellow panelist Mollie Hemingway pointed out that local media outlets had investigated and found most of the arrests were local residents.
