Robby Soave

Catholic school boys Part II: Some media just can't say they're sorry

Well, the plot grows thicker.

The Make America Great Again hat-wearing Catholic students –- who were in the midst of this past weekend’s controversy told about here -- are back in Covington, Ky. However, the furor has not died down. It followed them home.

Various media continue to climb around this ant hill, digging out what they can.

The scene has shifted back to Covington, which lies across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. It took a little while for the Cincinnati Enquirer to get up to speed but they’re finally on it. We’ll start with this piece about local Catholic entities closing their doors out of fear of violence.

Covington Catholic, Covington Latin and Diocese of Covington will be closed for an undetermined period of time following the backlash after a video of students and a man from the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington D.C. went viral.

According to a statement from the Diocese of Covington, the schools and the diocese were closed to due threats of violence toward the school as well as a planned rally outside the diocese.

Now there had been a demonstration, apparently at the local diocesan headquarters (although this poorly written Enquirer story doesn’t specify the exact locale), so it’s little wonder why the locals are nervous.

Other media concentrated on Nathan Phillips, the Native American who waded into the group of boys, then made himself out to be a victim. Then videos and transcripts videos proved he was stretching the truth — at best — during his attempts to stay in the limelight.

Then Fox News interviewed a chaperone who was present during the controversial showdown. (Note to Fox: This was not on Capitol Hill; it was a mile away at the Lincoln Memorial.)

“They were singled out; I believe for the color of their skin they were targeted,” the chaperone said in part. “Nick Sandmann had the courage to look this man in the face and diffuse the situation by not reacting.”

Unfortunately, the network didn’t ask the chaperone some hard questions. For example, why were there so few adults with the teens on the steps of the Memorial, as they waited for their bus to head home. Fox also identified the Native Americans accompanying Phillips as “left wing activists.”

So the rhetoric is ramping up, not down.


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Lax news: Catholic teens, plus Native elder, plus Hebrew Israelites equals volatile video mess

No doubt the religion story of the month involved a feisty aftermath of Friday’s March for Life in Washington, D.C. where a group of Catholic high school kids from Kentucky, a handful of Black Hebrew Israelite protestors and Native American activists met on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Black, Native, white: A perfect storm. What all three groups did or were alleged to have done during a two-hour period provoked a shrill media response on Saturday, resulting in a social media hatefest as local officials, their school and even their diocese immediately spoke out against the boys.

The digital attacks were so bad, the kids' Catholic school had to take down its website and Facebook page on Saturday afternoon.

Then more videos surfaced on Sunday; videos that showed some appalling insults from the Black Israelite group, aimed at the young Catholics; some tone deafness on the part of some of the Natives present and a group of clueless, often confused, teen-agers who got blamed for it all.

The end result: Sloppy reporting 1, MSM: 0. The prefect end to a horrid week for journalists.

Let’s start at the beginning. Here’s what the New York Times had on Saturday:

They were Catholic high school students who came to Washington on a field trip to rally at the March for Life.

He was a Native American veteran of the Vietnam War who was there to raise awareness at the Indigenous Peoples March.

They intersected on Friday in an unsettling encounter outside the Lincoln Memorial — a throng of cheering and jeering high school boys, predominantly white and wearing “Make America Great Again” gear, surrounding a Native American elder.

One does wonder what kids in town for a pro-life protest are doing with MAGA caps on. However, all kinds of things are sold near the National Mall.

The episode was being investigated and the students could face punishment, up to and including expulsion, their school said in a statement on Saturday afternoon.

In video footage that was shared widely on social media, one boy, wearing the red hat that has become a signature of President Trump, stood directly in front of the elder, who stared impassively ahead while playing a ceremonial drum.

What was not apparent in the first video footage was that the elder had marched into this group of kids and walked right up to the boy, who was backed up against the steps of the Memorial.


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