Journalists boast about how they hold the president accountable for his statements. But far too often, they mangle his statements, especially the ones that can sound racially insensitive. At Wednesday night's briefing, President Trump was asked about his use of the word "invasion" to describe Democratic plans to mandate low-income housing in suburban neighborhoods, which can be expected to decrease property values, as any realtor knows.
The word "invasion" is florid, and it's often applied to illegal immigration, so liberals are already prone to interpret it as racist or an application of racial code words. But PBS White House reporter Yamiche Alcindor completely mangled Trump's answer into something it was not.
This was the ACTUAL exchange.
REPORTER: You have sworn several times that if Joe Biden is elected President that there will be an "invasion" in suburban neighborhoods. It’s a sentiment that you expressed in a tweet again this morning. What exactly do you mean by “invasion”?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: What I mean is people are going to be come — they are going to be opening up areas of your neighborhood — which they’re doing, and now they’re going to do — they wanted to expand it. And they will expand it. If, for any reason — they’re going to, in my opinion, destroy suburbia.
And just so you understand, 30 percent-plus of the people living in suburbia are minorities. African American, Asian American, Hispanic American — they’re minorities. Thirty percent. The number is even higher, it’s — they say 35, but I like to cut it a little bit lower. You know why? That way I can never get myself in too much trouble with the fake news. But 30 percent-plus are minorities living in suburbia.
And when they go in and they want to change zoning so that you have lots of problems, where they want to build low-income housing — you want something where people can aspire to be there, not something where it gets hurt badly. And that’s what happens.
So he's saying that suburban homeowners are going to be financially harmed, including minorities. It's the Left that thinks "low-income housing" must mean black and brown people. How cynical is that?
Benny Johnson of the pro-Trump group Turning Point USA put the video on Twitter and shamed Alcindor as a "hack."
Here’s the clip with the actual context of the last part.
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) August 12, 2020
Hack.https://t.co/kOY5bD2LTC https://t.co/cggfOVe1QL
PS: Today's image came from a Georgetown University alumni video, which starts with Alcindor explaining how journalism is all about activism for change: "The big from Georgetown was to use whatever platform, whatever privilege you have to bring justice to the world." Georgetown grads are "tasked to make the world a better place, and that's what a try to do in my journalism."
But obviously, that mission is at war with objectivity. But then she proclaims she's Miss Fair and Balanced and Factual. "Journalists are trying to illuminate the truth....Right now more than ever, facts matter, and I think I put the facts out there, and I put them out there in an objective and fair way."
