Let’s talk anatidology.
Recently, the Daily Mail published extensive bodycam footage from the arresting officers in the George Floyd incident. Al Jazeera, interestingly enough, published a relatively fair assessment of the video and the circumstances surrounding its release. Crucial to the article is this section:
A Minnesota court is investigating how a British newspaper obtained police body-camera footage showing the arrest and death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died after an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes in May.
…
A Hennepin County judge last month allowed journalists and members of the public to view the footage by appointment, but has not yet ruled on a motion by a coalition of news organisations seeking public access to the videos.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office is leading the prosecution of the four fired Minneapolis police officers charged in Floyd's death, said he was not the source of the leak.
"We will continue to take the strictest precautions to ensure a fair trial," Ellison said in a statement.
So, because like Harry Caray I’m curious like a cat (which is why my friends call me Whiskers), I’ve watched the portion of the video that the Daily Mail published. I’ve watched it and I recommend you watch it. I recommend everyone watches it. I think it adds a lot of context to the situation that was missing beforehand. But that’s not the really important part of this story. Nor is Al Jazeera’s commentary on the video all that important.
What I think is fascinating. What I think the real story is, is that the judge is mad that the video got leaked. Why? Why is he mad? Well, ostensibly he’s mad because this will prejudice a jury, presumably it will prejudice a jury to exonerate officers because it shows that Floyd, who was a very large and very strong and very high and very uncooperative, was doing everything he could to use his size as a means of passive resistance. He lies throughout and cries wolf throughout and that makes it hard for officers to determine when to take him seriously and when not to.
Again, does this video mean that Minneapolis PD did nothing wrong? No. No it doesn’t. Does it help explain why MPD may have been so frustrated and so tired of the resistance and lying that they permitted Chauvin to kneel on Floyd even though officers had potential medical concerns? Yes. And both can be true at once. We can simultaneously accept that Floyd’s resistance, non-compliance, lying, and the fact that he had a lot of drugs in his system contributed to him being put in a bad situation. We can also say that kneeling on his neck when officers knew that this could have health complications was wrong. Both can be true. It’s not victim blaming to say that sometimes victims put themselves in a position to be victimized. Are we saying Floyd bears zero responsibility? Only a great fool would say that. He allegedly was passing counterfeit bills. Which, according to Minnesota Law, if it were under $1,000 dollars worth of goods or services purchased with the fake notes would have meant a maximum of 1 year in jail and a $3,000 fine. The passing of counterfeit money is alleged, but anyone who watches the video can see him physically resisting officers when he is in absolutely zero physical danger. In fact, it is Floyd who puts himself on the ground while wriggling out of a police cruiser. Were Minneapolis PD right to kneel on his neck? Nope. Did Floyd contribute to his own demise? Yep.
But again, that’s not the point. Remember, I said the big point of this article is that the video got leaked to the Daily Mail and they published it. But here’s the question. And this is important. So I want to be extra-special clear.
If the video was so prejudicial why was it shown to news outlets at all?! If it’s so prejudicial why did CNN get to see it. I mean, I know that no one could ever imagine CNN misrepresenting data or twisting facts to suit theories, they being the paragons of truthfulness in media. But CNN was, indeed, shown the video. And CNN commented. Omar Jimenez of CNN went on to describe what he saw in the video – ON CNN!
So, let’s think about this. The video is prejudicial. And, actually, I’m inclined to agree. I think that the news publishes WAY too much about cases before the case. In fact, my wife was assaulted as a teenager and the case against her assaulter was compromised because she had seen his picture in the paper. I think that far too often District Attorney’s are using the pretrial news as campaign ads. I think that we should get a lot of this info during the trial, not beforehand.
I get that people want to know what’s happening in our community. I understand that. But we publish way too much and I think that it does prejudice juries. On the other hand. And this I think is the crucial part and my point of departure with the honorable Judge – and the point of departure that every person who isn’t a crazy person must accept as the point of departure.
If watching the video is prejudicial – how is hearing a politicized description of it NOT prejudicial? Why is it so prejudicial for the Daily Mail to publish this that Minnesota Courts are investigating how it got leaked, but it’s not too prejudicial to allow CNN to view it and comment on it. And therein lies the frustration that so many people have with the way major events are dealt with in this country. Many many people in this country feel that the mainstream media and big tech and the deep state are all actively conspiring to give you a biased view of the days’ events that will better conform to fit the narrative that they want you to hear because it’s the narrative they want you to accept.
Many Americans believe in conspiracies because members of the media, big tech representatives, and officials in our government are behaving conspiratorially. Now, am I saying there’s a conspiracy? No. Conspiracies require secrecy. CNN and Google aren’t conspiring to give you a slanted and biased view of the events of the day – they just are – and are doing so rather nakedly. It’s not a conspiracy. At least not in the common use of the term. It’s just open bias. And open bias is OK. I’m openly biased towards Christ and Christianity. I think and write from the position that Christ is truth and the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired Revelation of God’s will to mankind. I don’t apologize for that. But I am open about it. Now, you could say that CNN et alia are conspiring because they pretend to be unbiased. I mean, in that sense it may be a conspiracy to the 11 people who still think CNN is an unbiased agency. But for the majority, the overwhelming majority of people, the bias is open.
And this is a problem. Even though the Washington Post likes to pompously posture and pontificate about how democracy dies in darkness, it is they who are muddying the already turbid waters by eroding confidence in the Media. People more and more are not seeing the news as the 4th Estate but as a 5th Column. And this is bad. This is not good for the country.
Now, here’s what I don’t want. I don’t want a bunch of prevaricating nonsense about how the news is unbiased. That’s ludicrous and self-serving, and worse and worse, it doesn’t solve the problem. The people who lived in the Communist Bloc came to hate the journalists from Pravda and other party organs that just published the same old tripe and lies. People who punch back at President Trump for calling the news the “enemies of the people” are missing the point. Trump isn’t an outlier in this opinion, he’s a bellwether. And that’s a distinction with a difference. Wrestling with the Mud-Monster who is Donald Trump is not going to convince anyone that the major news outlets are objective and unbiased. It’s a Political Relations non-sequitur. Sure, it plays to the base, but preaching to the choir never changes minds, and, moreover, it’s intellectual masturbation. Sure, it feels good to throw haymakers at Orangeman. But does this actually address the underlying problem?
The underlying problem is that news outlets twist facts and data to suit their narratives (and this happens on the right and the left, by the way). This is bad enough. But what’s VERY bad is when a Judge in the United States decides that it’s OK for a bunch of hand-picked journos to watch the prejudicial evidence, and then give a biased report on that evidence, but it’s not OK for us to watch it ourselves and make up our own minds about the contents of the video.
It certainly FEELS like there are people who are trying to keep information away from the average person. It certainly FEELS like this whole thing is inappropriate and untoward. It FEELS that way because it is. It is that way because we have a government official saying that the truth is only acceptable after it’s been massaged.
Right now we have people in our government, people with real power, who are saying that the truth is only acceptable for public consumption after a biased media mandarin has teased it and airbrushed it. Truth, in its naked form is not fit for hoi polloi. Our political betters will decide what truths we can have and when.
But people shouldn’t want airbrushed truth. We should just want the truth. It doesn’t need to be qualified. If it’s good for the goose it’s good for the gander, right? If CNN can see and then report on this prejudicial information, then why can’t we all just see it and cut out the middle-man? Why is the video not too prejudicial to have it described to us by members of our mediocracy but too prejudicial for us to simply see it ourselves.
As Christians these questions matter because Christians, more than anyone, need to care about the truth because we claim to love and serve Truth Himself, with a capital T. Christians ought to desire the truth – whether it affirms or undermines our political priors. More Truth is always a good thing. And we should always be seeking the Truth. And we should never simply accept that the Truth needs to be adulterated or corrected or arranged for us before it’s appropriate for us. Truth doesn’t need to be sanitized and contextualized by our media elite before its acceptable for public consumption. We just need more of it. More Truth is always better. And we should never be happy with less Truth, neither less of it or less than it.