In this rather unusual followup to the bizarre limousine crash in upstate New York CBS commentators have no conclusive breakdown of exactly how the decedents met their demise in the collision.
Instead, they note how few limousines are thoroughly equipped with seatbelts, then turn to arguably unrelated scenarios of rear seat passengers in more commonplace passenger vehicles not wearing safety belts during an accident.
After showing some video footage of people jostled around in the back of vans sans seat belts, at 4:06, CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King states:
“Because when you look at that van, er, limo, … it seems pretty much intact, so you’re thinking how many people could die.. but when you look at that video [mentioned above] you see the neck snapping that way, and we still don’t know exactly how they died, but when you see the neck snapping that way, you can understand why the death toll would be so high…”
Two days later CBS broadcasts an interview of the limousine driver’s remarkably composed wife, yet the specifics of fatalities remain a mystery.
It’s being billed as “the deadliest transportation accident” in almost a decade. Over the past two days major media outlets descended on the small upstate New York community of Schoharie to report on the tragic deaths of 20 twenty and thirty-somethings–many of them newlyweds with newborn children.
They were young adults — sisters, brothers, old friends and newlyweds — who were celebrating one of their birthday’s in a rented SUV limousine on a drive through rural Schoharie County.
They are now victims of the nation’s deadliest transportation disaster in nine years.
Twenty people died Saturday afternoon in the horrific wreck at the intersection of state routes 30 and 30A in the town of Schoharie. The stretch limo, packed with 18 people, drove through a stop sign at the notorious intersection and fatally struck two people in the parking lot of a popular country store, before slamming into an earthen embankment and killing all of the oversized vehicle’s occupants.
Editor’s Note: This brief analysis from Russia’s RT succinctly illustrates the extent to which US corporate news media now function as political disinformation outlets. “Disinformation” is defined as “false information spread deliberately to deceive.” Under common journalistic practice an editor’s attempts to persuade her readership on a certain stance is presented as an “editorial.”
Now, however, in their barely-concealed contempt for Donald Trump’s presidency, even the New York Times, which promotes itself as a bastion of sober journalistic objectivity, knowingly partakes in mispresenting information for an intended effect.
Regardless of one’s take on Trump’s political leadership, the notion that he simply uses the “fake news” label to denote news stories and media he personally dislikes is simply self-serving and disingenuous. The analysis below is but one example of how the hyper-politicized US news media undermine their own credibility.
Mainstream US media was quick to condemn the president’s remarks as bigotry and racism, and a dehumanization technique aimed at any and all immigrants from Latin America who enter the US illegally across the border with Mexico.
Trump “lashed out at undocumented immigrants,” the The New York Times reported:
A ThinkProgress journalist called it a “Hitlerian note”:
Trump strikes a Hitlerian note about immigrants: "You wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals." pic.twitter.com/LpmgDMZ9RV
CNN commentator Keith Boykin argued Trump’s comments were “the same dehumanization tactic used by slave traders and slave owners to justify the oppression of black people for hundreds of years.”
Trump referring to human beings as "animals" is the same dehumanization tactic used by slave traders and slave owners to justify the oppression of black people for hundreds of years. https://t.co/6LY6XJwFH4
The Huffington Post’s catchy headline read: “Trump Refers To Immigrants As ‘Animals.’ Again.” The New York Times meanwhile delicately highlighted that Trump was referring to just “some” of the immigrants, not all of them.
There is just one tiny problem with the story: it’s ‘fake news’, as Trump himself would probably call it.
If one watches the actual video of the exchange from Wednesday’s roundtable – rather than the selectively truncated segments – it becomes clear Trump was referring to the notorious MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, gang members rather than Latin Americans or illegal immigrants in general. A description of the exchange on C-SPAN, the cable channel that carries live political broadcasts, clearly says Trump was referring to “MS-13 gang members.”
The hour-long portion of the event open to the press was live-streamed on YouTube by the White House, and the relevant exchange is available to anyone who wishes to hear for themselves (at 24:18).
This is not the first time Trump has referred to Mara Salvatrucha members as “animals,” either. He used the term in a June 2017 speech about illegal immigration in Long Island, New York. Another notable instance was the July 2017 rally in Youngstown, Ohio.
MS-13 originated in California during the 1980s, among refugees fleeing the civil war in El Salvador, in which the Reagan administration backed the right-wing government. The gang, known for its viciousness, has since spread throughout the US and even Canada, and is reportedly allied with Mexican drug cartels.
