NBC Today Anchor and MSNBC Host Tweets Directive To Use Protests Rather Than Riots In Reporting [Updated] JONATHAN TURLEY
A police station in Minneapolis was torched last night as looting and rioting continued in that city. The escalating violence and looting has magnified controversies over how networks are describing the scenes. Earlier, Craig Melvin, an MSNBC host and co-anchor of Today, shed some light as to how his network is framing its reporting. Melvin tweeted a guide that the images on the ground are not to be described as rioting but rather protests. That framing has been used on other networks, including some segments where the reporting seems bizarrely out of sync with the scenes in the background. Update: CNN appears to be drawing a distinction in an even more curious way.
It’s the 1970s all over again. Trump is Nixon.