CNN -- the network where Brian Stelter preaches that the Republicans and Fox News are guilty of "asymmetric lying" -- was dramatically bending reality in the 5 am hour on Tuesday. On Early Start, they went live to correspondent Omar Jimenez, who described the images of buildings ablaze as being in “stark contrast” to the events going on in the daylight, “which were largely peaceful demonstrations.”
The chyron was unbelievable: "FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING".
Before turning to Jimenez, co-host Laura "daughter of Valerie" Jarrett explained "There were protests in several other cities yesterday as well, most of them peaceful, although an officer was attacked with a cane in San Diego."
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, what you're seeing is one of multiple locations that have been burning in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the course of the night, a second night since Jacob Blake was seen shot in the back seven times by a police officer. And what you are seeing now, these images came in stark contrast to what we saw over the course of the daytime hours in Kenosha and into the early evening, which were largely peaceful demonstrations in the face of law enforcement.
It wasn't until night fall that things begun to get a little bit more contentious. Things were thrown back and forth. Police started using some of those crowd dispersal tactics like tear gas, even playing really loud sounds to push them.
And then what you're seeing, a common theme that ties all of this together is an expression of anger and frustration over what people feel really like has become an all too familiar story playing out in places from across the country not just here in Kenosha, Wisconsin -- Christine, Laura.
Jimenez is the 26-year-old CNN reporter who was wrongly arrested by police in Minneapolis during the George Floyd-spurred rioting. CNN then turned that mistake into an ad about their own heroic riot coverage. As Tristan Justice at The Federalist noted, Jimenez was also the reporter on scene on Monday's Situation Room where the CNN chyron was briefly accurate -- “8PM Curfew Ordered After Violent Protests Over Police Shooting Of Unarmed Black Man In Wisconsin” -- until they nixed the V-word after a few seconds.
This early-morning Jimenez segment immediately caused most conservatives to recall a similar mind-bending incident by MSNBC's Ali Velshi in Minneapolis on the Lyin' Brian Williams show in May, saying “this is… mostly a protest...It is not, generally speaking, unruly.”
