The Los Angeles Times provided the template for media bias in reporting of Donald Trump with a report on his Las Vegas rally Monday evening that focused almost entirely on hecklers, to the exclusion of what the candidate said.
The Times‘ Michael Finnegan and Kurtis Lee filed a report on the rally, attended by roughly 2,000 supporters ahead of Tuesday night’s GOP debate, under the headline: “Scuffles erupt at Trump rally in Las Vegas.”
The report did not describe what Trump said in a speech that lasted over an hour. Instead, it portrayed Trump as if he had been trying to encourage violence against the heckler, and suggested strongly that audience members had made racist remarks.
They write: “…Trump did not discourage aggressive treatment of those disrupting him. ‘Get him out of here, please,’ Trump said as supporters shouted down a heckler being led away by security.”
In fact, Trump was jovial with those interrupting him, teasing them and using interruptions to mock the media: “Look at those cameras turn. They only turn when there’s a protester,” Trump joked (and judging by Finnegan and Lee’s reporting, he had them pegged).
Finnegan and Lee quote (but do not link to) a video of a scuffle in which a voice is apparently heard saying “Light that [expletive] on fire.” They add that the remark occurred “as an African American demonstrator sat on the ground and was pulled up by security.”
The clear implication is that the crowd was racist, and angry–which would have been a surprise to the black people in attendance, some of whom told Breitbart News they enjoyed his speech.