Establishment media coverage of the murder trial of teenager Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, this week has skewed events to suggest his guilt — even as the prosecution’s case against him fell apart under cross-examination.
Rittenhouse shot and killed two men, and wounded another, Gaige Grosskreutz, on Aug. 25 last year while defending businesses in Kenosha from Black Lives Matter rioters. At the time, the media falsely called him a “white supremacist”; then-candidate Joe Biden repeated the claim, though there was never any evidence to back up that inflammatory charge.
Under cross-examination, key prosecution witnesses admitted that Rittenhouse only shot those who were attacking him.
Yet most establishment media outlets continued to report the trial as if Rittenhouse’s guilt were somehow inevitable.
Grosskreutz, for example, admitted that Rittenhouse only shot him after he pointed his own gun at Rittenhouse.
Yet CBS News reported Grosskreutz’s testimony under the headline: “Lone survivor shot by Kyle Rittenhouse at Kenosha protests says he thought he ‘was going to die.'” The headline left out Grosskreutz’s admission that he was armed, and also suggests that Rittenhouse targeted protesters, rather than firing at people who were actively pursuing him during a melee.
National Public Radio also portrayed Grosskreutz as a victim, while downplaying the fact that he admitted pointing the gun at Rittenhouse, suggesting that he did not intend to do so. (Defense attorney: “It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him … that he fired, right?” Grosskreutz: “Correct.”)
The Washington Post reported that Grosskreutz did, in fact, intend to point his gun at Rittenhouse, but reported that fact as follows: “Gaige Grosskreutz says he feared for his life, pointed gun at Kyle Rittenhouse before getting shot.” The article reported: “In his testimony, Grosskreutz acknowledged confronting Rittenhouse with a gun in one hand but denied he ever intended to shoot him.”
As the prosecution has stumbled, the media have turned to criticizing Judge Bruce Schroeder:
Numerous critics of the media coverage, most of them conservative, have warned that the establishment media’s portrayal of the trial could lead to shock, outrage, and even violence if Rittenhouse is acquitted. Already, defense lawyers are suggesting they may move for a mistrial based on what the judge has said are “grave constitutional violation[s]’ by the prosecution.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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