“A Google news search for the Clinton-Dix story yields 628 results. A search for ‘Browns take a knee’ yields 29,500,000. That’s not a typo.”
The last thing I saw last night before shutting my eyes and going to sleep was the story about Green Bay Packers Defensive Back Ha’Sean “Ha Ha” Clinton-Dix wearing the names of four fallen officers on his cleats for Saturday’s pre-season matchup against the Denver Broncos. I didn’t get it from ESPN.com. I didn’t get it from CNN.com. I got it from Twitter, that one place where you can still hear about things that don’t fit the mainstream media narrative – stand by on that, though. I’m sure there’s a Facebook style algorithm to fix that “problem” in the works.
Today was my off day, but I was up and at ‘em early. Instead of smashing the snooze button 10 or 15 times, I laid in bed reading. It was then that I read up on a story about how twelve Cleveland Browns football players took a knee during the national anthem to make it “the largest national anthem protest in NFL history”, according to FoxNews.com. Like the Ha Ha Clinton-Dix police story, I got this little news nugget from Twitter, but that’s about as far as the similarities in coverage of the two stories goes.
In today’s day and age, it’s getting harder to not simply draw a line and join a side no matter what the issue is. At the same time, it’s getting ever easier to recognize and call “BULLSH*T!” on sources of information that pretend to be objective while clearly playing for a particular team. The disparity in coverage between these two stories is a testament to that.
Let’s take a look at what outfits covered which story and to what lengths they went to in covering them, shall we? I’ll start with the big ones – those most shameless “journalism” brands that will come of no surprise to anyone – and work my way down to a not so surprising conclusion.
I’ve got to kick this off with “Fake news” CNN in memoriam of their national undressing at the hands of President Trump in Phoenix last night. You know them, they’re the “Antifa seeks peace through violence” guys. It’s only appropriate to begin with the best example of gonzo journalism masquerading as trusted news. The first is the worst, they say.
It’s a great story that an impoverished black kid grew up in the Sunshine State, looked up to police, attended college as a criminal justice major, and now wants to honor those in his state who have fallen in the line of duty over the past year on the big stage – right? One may even call it a representation of the “American Dream”. Not in CNN land. After all, a black footballer supporting slain police officers in “Kaepernick’s NFL” simply does not exist in that crazy place. There has been no coverage of this development from CNN whatsoever.
Keep it up and you’re going to achieve your worst nightmare. You’re going to ensure that Trump is elected to another four years in office.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about a big NFL story that does exist to CNN. Google search “Browns take knee CNN” and you get two stories in the same day. The first one references the original Kaepernick protest, but really shines the spotlight on Cleveland Browns players for agreeing with the sentiment that “there’s a lot of social and racial injustices going on in the world right now”. The players who kneeled were mentioned of course. Duke Johnson Jr., Terrence Magee, Jabrill Peppers, Calvin Pryor, Jamar Taylor, Seth DeValve, Kenny Britt, Ricardo Louis, Christian Kirksey, Jamie Collins, Isaiah Crowell, and Brandon Wilds all got some ink. What is not mentioned anywhere in the article, however, is Crowell’s history of hatred against cops evidenced by his posting of this picture of a police officer having his throat slit by a black-clad ISIS/Black Supremacist hybrid to Instagram last season, or the fact that Kenny Britt’s arrest record is miles long.
The piece also idolizes a white player who no one ever heard of prior to now that he has “made history” by being the first white player to kneel during the national anthem. Keep this in important distinction in mind. CNN thinks that a story of black and white Americans coming together is great when it’s about showing disrespect to the flag, but they won’t touch a story with a ten-foot pole when the unifier is a show of respect for slain police officers.
The second CNN piece is really just about accusations that the owners of all 32 NFL teams got together and decided to blackball Kaepernick because, wait for it…racism. CNN wants you to believe that this insane conspiracy theory must be true because 12 players on the NFL’s consistently most disorganized and unsuccessful team won’t stand for the national anthem. That’s CNN logic at its finest, folks.
Of course, it wouldn’t be CNN if Trump weren’t criticized at some point – so don’t worry, the article’s got that covered too. CNN is boring and predictable. Let’s move onto an equally dreary media outlet whose coverage of these two stories went as expected due to their social justice warrior agenda. Let’s check in with ESPN.
When it comes to the nation’s “flagship sports brand”, the Cleveland Browns bending at the knee shouldn’t have even been news. The Browns have been bending over for opposing teams every Sunday for the better part of a decade and they’ll continue to do so because they’re the Browns – the NFL’s perennial toilet bowl stain of a team. Regardless of this cold hard truth, the Browns 12 got a big story on the main site complete with a video, quotes, and lots and lots of old fashioned feel-good positive spin.
How did ESPN cover the Clinton-Dix cleat story, you ask? Well, I can’t find it anywhere on ESPN.com. Hey, that’s ok. Maybe one of their big media markets did something on it. Anything over there at ESPN New York? No. Let’s try ESPN Los Angeles. Still nothing. Surely, ESPN covered a Florida born and bred NFL star’s tasteful shout out to four deceased Florida police officers – right? Wrong. Wait! We have a winner. How in the world could I have overlooked the internationally acclaimed sports media hub of Sioux Falls, South Dakota?
Added 2 more angels to my cleats in respect to families who loss Two HEROS in the community. #SAMHOWARD #MATTHEWBAXTER #RIP 👮🏾♀️👮🏾👮🏿👮🏻 pic.twitter.com/JLT0ZxETWu
— Ha Ha Clinton-Dix (@haha_cd6) August 19, 2017
When it came to covering the Clinton-Dix story, the lone ESPN affiliate to report on it was ESPN Radio Sioux Falls 99.1FM. The Clinton-Dix story got about 200 words of which the writer spent about 60 prefacing it with the customary job-keeping tripe about how he loves the social activism Kaep and others are doing before even mentioning something about old Ha Ha’s nod to four dead cops. It doesn’t get any braver than that at the “Worldwide Leader in Sports”.
To round out the rest of the media coverage, I’m just going to put this out there. A Google news search for the Clinton-Dix story yields 628 results. A search for “Browns take a knee” yields 29,500,000. That’s not a typo.
Most of the pro-police Clinton-Dix stories are from local outlets in conservative areas, conservative news sites like the Daily Caller and Breitbart, or law enforcement sites like officer.com. I want to say thanks to Sports Illustrated and SB Nation, two popular sports outlets, for showing some courage – and simply fairness in running it.
To the endless media outlets who pumped out 29 million gracious representations of 12 millionaire athletes disrespecting the flag, I say this:
You are the nation’s most urgent problem. Identity politics and social justice warrior nonsense make up the embodiment of a dead horse no matter how many times you kick it. Keep it up and you’re going to achieve your worst nightmare. You’re going to ensure that Trump is elected to another four years in office.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
