During the Smollett debacle, there were exactly two reporters worth following. Both were local reporters from Chicago television. Both recognized the gaping inconsistencies of a highly paid actor moping out from his hotel at 2 a.m. in sub-zero temperatures because he had a jones for Subway, getting rolled and doused with bleach by two white guys in MAGA hats who described Chicago as “MAGA Country,” and wandering back to his hotel without a mark on him, a rope around his neck, and a Subway sandwich in his hand. These were Rob Elgas (@RobElgasABC7) of Channel 7 and Rafer Weigel (@RaferWeigel) of Fox’s Channel 32. If you go back through the reports that moved this story forward, they all originated from one of these two men.

Throughout the time when the media were hyping this story…and don’t believe the bullsh** emanating from The Bulwark,

The Bulwark Club is now just parroting Stelter pic.twitter.com/jWgiSGgYSQ

— American Journalists Publish Chinese Propaganda (@JohnEkdahl) February 18, 2019

This wasn’t a few “celebrity reporters”– the entire US media were relentlessly pushing this story as fact long before the police began an active investigation in much the same way they were pushing the Covington Kids story.

The headlines and chyrons of CNN, NBC News and CBS News from day 1 all clearly take, as fact, that an attack happened . The question raised was only if it was a hate crime. 2/ pic.twitter.com/qkOWBL57jb

— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) February 18, 2019

Another issue with the media coverage of Smollett was the immediate secondary story. Here, demonstrated by @CNN and @BuzzFeed, any element of skepticism was dismissed by these tweets about celebrity response to the “brutal attack” (no “alleged” in there). 4/ pic.twitter.com/SrmkkyCGZE

— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) February 18, 2019

Another example: @thedailybeast tweets a column that instantly analyzes the situation, quoting the column with “what happened to Smollett was a form of white terrorism.” They had no problem in their 2nd day story calling it “an assault,” without any “alleged” present. 6/ pic.twitter.com/s10oU30I1p

— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) February 18, 2019

Weigel was one of the guys who corrected the notorious shill Sopan Deb and made him go away:

Media outlets who 1st reported Smollett was “attacked” made an error. Initially most of us in #Chicago media reported “Jussie Smollett says he was attacked” because we didn’t know if it actually happened. It’s the old adage, “if your mother says she loves you, check it out”

— raferweigel (@RaferWeigel) February 18, 2019

And yet, there was no interest shown by any national media in talking to the people who were breaking all the exclusives in the case. In fact, Weigel was even attacked for his reporting by the BLM goons

Black Lives Matter & anti-police activist @deray also used his influential platform to try to discredit @fox32news reporter @RaferWeigel. https://t.co/7Wop3nGD65 pic.twitter.com/FPMQYDRhcr

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) February 15, 2019

So, how many times did you see either of these reporters on national television? Outside of Fox, the number is zero. Why is that?

For those asking me why I only went on @seanhannity @IngrahamAngle and @ShannonBream on @FoxNews, to talk #JussieSmollett and not any others—simply, they are the national TV shows that asked me to come on.

— raferweigel (@RaferWeigel) February 20, 2019

The reason for that is pretty clear. As Lara Logan said yesterday, the media are “absurdly left-leaning.” They were invested in this story and the only people in the media who were saying, slow down there may be more to the story than Trump causing racism” were roundly ignored.

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