Opinion - LA riot coverage shows the media's Biden ‘miss' wasn't a miss at all — they just lie
If you still need proof that the media never intended to tell you the truth about former President Joe Biden's physical and mental decline, look no further than their coverage of the riots in Los Angeles.
These people have no problem lying right to your face — insisting that you doubt the evidence before your own eyes and instead believe their preferred version of events.
There is plenty of photo and video evidence showcasing the violent unrest in Los Angeles — everything from cars set ablaze to rioters hurling chunks of concrete at law enforcement officers and their vehicles.
An unlawful assembly was declared within hours of when the violence first broke out way back on June 6 — more than a week ago, when the rioters and arsonists initially clashed with federal officers. City law enforcement officials deployed tear gas and other crowd control methods that evening in an attempt to disperse the mob. Not long afterward, Los Angeles issued a citywide tactical alert, alerting the city's officers of an all-hands event.
Note that all of this occurred before President Trump had called up the National Guard.
In the early morning of June 8, after two days of escalation, the first National Guard troops arrived on the scene. Trump later called in the U.S. Marines to protect federal properties, which had already been attacked and vandalized.
The city's comically inept mayor, Karen Bass, imposed a curfew and declared a local emergency on June 10.
Despite the timeline, major media are going out of their way to downplay and dismiss the violence. They are trying to frame the narrative, maintaining simultaneously that the riots are 'largely peaceful' and that Trump somehow tricked the rioters into their violent and lawless behavior (notice the contradiction?) by sending in the troops days after they had started rioting.
It hasn't even been a year since journalists tried to convince you that Biden was 'sharp and focused.' They are already back to lying — telling you to ignore the evidence before your eyes and accept some version of time-travel that allows their narrative to make sense, that Trump somehow provoked the rioters to riot days after they had started rioting.
The Associated Press attempted to downplay the violence by highlighting a more violent historical example: 'LA protests far different from '92 Rodney King riots.'
Well, yeah — and United Flight 93 wasn't as deadly as Flights 11 and 175. But that's not really the point, is it?
'Offline, in real-world Los Angeles, most Angelenos are having a perfectly normal day,' wrote self-appointed media ombudsman and CNN analyst Brian Stelter. 'But online, the fires and riots are still raging. Seeking clicks, clout and chaos, unvetted social media accounts are preying on fears about where last weekend's clashes will lead. … [T]he powerful algorithms that fuel social media platforms are feeding users days-old and sometimes completely fake content about the recent unrest in L.A., contributing to a sense of non-stop crisis.'
Stelter complained elsewhere that people have been getting a false impression of the riots because of 'hours-old' video — one hell of a claim, considering how much mileage we got out of five-year-old footage of the January 2021 Capitol riot.
On June 10, the day Bass imposed a curfew and declared a local emergency, PBS reported on the ground, '[T]he scene here has been pretty quiet, almost festival-like … Of course, we mentioned some looting, but, in general, last night was pretty nonviolent … Also keep in mind that this is happening in a very small slice of the city. It's only a few blocks of downtown L.A., and in the rest of the city, Angelenos are going about their lives as normal.'
We might as well say that nearly all of Iran was not bombed the other day — it's just as true.
At ABC News, there has been praise for the rioters' supposed self-control, with reporter Mary Bruce alleging, 'We've witnessed many of the protesters self-policing, keeping others in check.'
On Wednesday, NBC News' Liz Kreutz attempted to extinguish the idea that L.A. was on fire. 'You could be in Santa Monica or another part of LA and not even feel the impact of these protests,' she said. 'They are very much concentrated [to] a very small pocket of downtown LA, around the federal building, around City Hall.'
'And we should say there are some agitators and people that have been really instigating things with police,' she added. 'But for the most part, especially during the day, many of the protesters gathering have been peaceful.'
At the New Yorker, an editorial cartoon featured the caption, 'The protesters seem to be doing some sort of joyful synchronized dance. Is it time to call in the Marines?'
The New York Times, meanwhile, took a more predictable line, publishing an article that opined the debate has been flooded with dis- and misinformation. This is true, but the Times gives the game away when it focuses exclusively on 'nutpicking' pro-Trump right-wingers while giving a pass to those who lie or misinform to downplay what has been happening.
'Fake Images and Conspiracy Theories Swirl Around L.A. Protests,' read the headline, its subhead adding, 'Disinformation spreading on social media platforms has stoked an already tense situation.'
The article mentions actor James Woods. It quotes a university professor who alleges right-wingers are 'building up the riots in a performative way' to help support Trump's claims that Los Angeles had been taken over by 'violent, insurrectionist mobs.' The report mentions a viral photo of bricks, which was falsely cited as evidence that the riots are well-organized and funded.
The article references Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). It references anti-George Soros conspiracies. It quotes another university egghead who asserts that things such as the bogus bricks claim are 'catnip for right-wing agitators and grifters.' The article also suggests the Russians may be involved in spreading false narratives regarding the riots.
Oddly missing from the report are mentions of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who risibly claimed on June 10 that there had been 'no violence' in Los Angeles before the National Guard was called up. The article fails to mention a June 7 viral video, which claims to showcase a Los Angeles school worker's 'frustration over parents having to leave their children's graduation ceremony because ICE raided an elementary school's graduation today.' That video was an outright lie, and it has garnered eight million views — far more than any falsehood cited in the Times's reporting.
The Times article has not been updated to include ABC's Jimmy Kimmel telling his 1.5 million primetime viewers on June 11, during which a curfew was in place and an unlawful assembly declared, that 'There's no riot outside.' Nor does the Times article mention when the hosts of 'The View,' which is part of ABC's news division, falsely claimed, '[It has] been peaceful for days, and then suddenly these guys showed up and flipped everybody out,' and 'These protests were very, very orderly, they weren't violent, and they occurred in about a four-block radius.'
The Times apparently couldn't be bothered to track these falsehoods. It is too busy publishing stories with headlines such as, 'Not Far From Tense Clashes, Life Goes on in L.A.,' and subheads such as, 'Trump officials have cast demonstrators waving the Mexican flag as insurrectionists, but for many protesters who are Mexican American, the flag represents pride in their heritage.' Amusingly, the Times has also been running overly defensive pieces, including one which falsely described the riots as 'largely peaceful' not once or twice, but three times.
Perhaps most laughable of all is the Los Angeles-based ABC News reporter who said at the outset of the riots, 'It could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there in the wrong way, and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers and demonstrators.'
On June 9, an amateur videographer captured footage of protesters hurling cinder blocks from an overpass onto California Highway Patrol officers below. The footage shows one officer being struck directly in the skull, knocking his helmet off and splitting his head open. He is seen later surrounded by his colleagues, his face drenched in blood spurting from the fresh wound.
The media have a serious problem. As far as the Biden story is concerned, and all the recent attempts to explain how they 'missed it' or were 'tricked' into believing the former president was sharp as a tack, it is all self-serving baloney. Their halfhearted defenses are pure theater. It is CYA mode of the highest order.
These people have no problem lying right to your face, and they are showing it once again. They only care that they can get away with it.
Becket Adams is program director of the National Journalism Center at the Young America's Foundation.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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