4 ms·

Very aware of this. A viral video looked bad, but on further research, the story is much more complicated. It appears the people who jumped to conclusions admi

Very aware of this. A viral video looked bad, but on further research, the story is much more complicated. It appears the people who jumped to conclusions admitted their mistakes and within one day they're falling all over themselves to admit, apologize and disseminate the truth. Looks to me like the system is working, and these outlets are not using fake intolerance as a pretext to discriminate against this group. NYT - "Fuller Picture Emerges of Viral Video" (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/us/nathan-phillips-covington.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/us/nathan-phillips-coving...) The Atlantic - "I Failed the Covington Catholic Test" (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/julie-irwin-zimmerman-i-failed-covington-catholic-test/580897/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/julie-irwi...)

colordrops 8y ago
Yeah I noticed that this one is getting called out as well. It's good that the whole video was released; also as it was children getting the brunt of it, it was necessary to correct the misconceptions. Unfortunately this sort of retraction doesn't occur in the thousands of daily online discussions where the same sort of pre-judgement and labeling occurs every day. The media in it's clickbait culture has successfully divided the two sides, and they believe the other side is the epitome of evil, which leaves no room for discussion. Edit: there could be a filter bubble effect going on here too. We all see different slices of online life. Pretty much all my follows are extreme leftist, so I see a lot of the behavior I'm discussing
weberc2 8y ago
Certainly many people have recanted and that's great, but many others haven't; lots of influential people (including celebrities) are doubling down on their demonization of these teenagers (in some cases, including calls for doxxing and physical violence) to the tune of tens of thousands of upvotes and likes per post/tweet/etc. Worse, virtually every mainstream publication that wrote about the story led with misinformation, and many failed to publish a retraction or an apology of any kind. And the retractions that actually do get published will never be circulated as widely as the original sensationalist publication ("lies travel faster than the truth" and all that jazz). The entire journalism industry failed at its principle responsibilities--to defer knee-jerk reactions in pursuit of the truth and to see past stereo-types and identity to the individual and the nuanced context. And the consequence was that dozens of students, family, and school faculty were harassed, slandered, and threatened. The only relief in all of this is that no one has acted on their threats. I don't know how any decent person can call this a passably-functioning system. This is the textbook example of a deeply broken system.

colordrops 8y ago

Yeah I noticed that this one is getting called out as well. It's good that the whole video was released; also as it was children getting the brunt of it, it was necessary to correct the misconceptions. Unfortunately this sort of retraction doesn't occur in the thousands of daily online discussions where the same sort of pre-judgement and labeling occurs every day. The media in it's clickbait culture has successfully divided the two sides, and they believe the other side is the epitome of evil, which leaves no room for discussion. Edit: there could be a filter bubble effect going on here too. We all see different slices of online life. Pretty much all my follows are extreme leftist, so I see a lot of the behavior I'm discussing

weberc2 8y ago

Certainly many people have recanted and that's great, but many others haven't; lots of influential people (including celebrities) are doubling down on their demonization of these teenagers (in some cases, including calls for doxxing and physical violence) to the tune of tens of thousands of upvotes and likes per post/tweet/etc. Worse, virtually every mainstream publication that wrote about the story led with misinformation, and many failed to publish a retraction or an apology of any kind. And the retractions that actually do get published will never be circulated as widely as the original sensationalist publication ("lies travel faster than the truth" and all that jazz). The entire journalism industry failed at its principle responsibilities--to defer knee-jerk reactions in pursuit of the truth and to see past stereo-types and identity to the individual and the nuanced context. And the consequence was that dozens of students, family, and school faculty were harassed, slandered, and threatened. The only relief in all of this is that no one has acted on their threats. I don't know how any decent person can call this a passably-functioning system. This is the textbook example of a deeply broken system.