The independent, third party investigation into the events surrounding the "face off" between pro-life, Covington Catholic high school students and an elderly Indian man, at the Lincoln Memorial back in late January, has been completed and has found the students, despite the media's massive fake news disinformation campaign, did nothing wrong, and in fact are being commended by the Diocese of Covington for how they conducted themselves.
The mainstream media's handling of this actual news has been dismal at best as many news stations that helped perpetuate the original lie and made it go viral online, didn't even address the completion of the formal investigation, nor the investigation firms findings.
BRIEF RECAP - MSM COVINGTON FAKE NEWS ATTACK ON HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
ANP covered the original controversy in detail here, here, and here, so I will just give a brief recap for new readers.
Covington Catholic high school students joined the pro-life March in DC, were harassed by a group of black Hebrew Israelites, then an Indian man by the name of Nathan Phillips approached the students, got right up in the face of one of the students, Nick Sandmann, and started beating his drum in his face and chanting.
The entire incident was caught on multiple camera phones, and a nearly two hour video of the entire event was published online, as was a selectively edited four minute-plus clip taken from the longer version.
The media jumped on the four minute clip, while Independent Media tried to show the entire clip, as we at ANP, and many, many others attempted to provide the entire big picture, but the media continued to incite liberals with the selectivey edited video and headlines claiming the students "surrounded" the Native American "Vietnam veteran" and "taunted" and "mocked" him.
A Google search, custom range of just articles published on January 19, 2019, the day the selectively edited clip went viral, shows exactly how the media framed their narrative and ran with the selectively edited video. A small sample, just from the first of many pages of the search results, shown in the screen shot below:
That type of coverage by the liberal establishment media continued for days.
The result was liberals all across social media, as well as so-called "journalists," and celebrities, attacked the Covington students, threatening them, calling them "punchable," and in one case suggested that they all be put in the school and the school should be burned to the ground.
The full video coverage showed the students did not surround the man, he approached them. Furthermore, they did not "mock," nor "taunt" him, they joined in with his chant. Finally the Indian man was a veteran but unlike his previous statements that the media repeated without investigating, he was not a "Vietnam" veteran.
INVESTIGATION COMPLETE - STUDENTS REACTIONS 'LAUDATORY,' BISHOP COMMENDS THEM."
On February 11, 2019, the Diocese of Covington, issued a statement about the completion of a third party, independent investigation. The Diocese of Covington initially condemned the students based on the selectively edited short video the liberal establishment media made go viral, claiming they had been bullied into issuing a premature statement. Days later they apologized for that initial condemnation, and directly apologized to Nick Sandmann.
I am pleased to inform you that my hope and expectation expressed in my letter to you of 25 January that the results of our inquiry into the events of 18 January at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. would “exonerate our students so that they can move forward with their lives” has been realized. Our inquiry, conducted by a third party firm that has no connection with Covington Catholic High School or the Diocese of Covington, has demonstrated that our students did not instigate the incident that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial.
In these past several weeks since the original video went viral two well-worn and oft-used adages have come to mind: Seeing is believing and Perception is reality. The immediate world-wide reaction to the initial video led almost everyone to believe that our students had initiated the incident and the perception of those few minutes of video became reality.
In truth, taking everything into account, our students were placed in a situation that was at once bizarre and even threatening. Their reaction to the situation was, given the circumstances, expected and one might even say laudatory. These students had come to Washington, D.C. to support life. They marched peacefully with hundreds of thousands of others – young and old and in-between – to further the cause of life. These young high school students could never have expected what they experienced on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial while waiting for the busses to take them home. Their stance there was surely a pro-life stance. I commend them.
Under the scope of investigation, the reports indicates that four licensed investors were involed in the investigation, which included 240 man hours. Student statements were obtained and they interviewed 43 students. The interviewed 13 of the 16 chaperones that were present for the event, nine faculty and four parent chaperones. The reviewed "50 hours of internet activity, including but not limited to all major news networks, YouTube, Vimeo, social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter."
They attempted to interview Nathan Phillips by phone, and email, even traveling to his home but received no return communications.
From their key findings:
• "The students who arrived earlier encountered the Black Hebrew Israelites, who clearly addressed offensive statements to the students."
• The investigation found "no evidence that students responded with any offensive or racist statements of their own."
• The students were given permission by their chaperones to do school cheers to "drown out the Black Hebrew Israelites."
• They found "no evidence that the students performed a 'Build the Wall' chant."
• Mr. Phillips approached the students."
• They found "no evidence of offensive or racist statements by students to Mr. Phillips or members of his group. Some students performed a 'tomahawk chop' to the beat of Mr. Phillips' drumming and some joined in Mr. Phillips' chant."
• As to the media's push of another video at the time where an individual was heard making a comment that "it's not rape if you enjoy it," which was immediately credited to a Covington Catholic student by the media and liberals on social media, the investigators found "the individual who made the comment was not a student of Covington Catholic." They further found that "viewing longer videos of this comment reveals that a person in the crowd states, 'He does not go to CovCath' almost immediately after the comment was made."
The importance of the longer video showing that last statement, which was not in the original clip that also went viral, is that it was another selectively edited clip that was pushed on the internet in an attempt to libel the Covington Catholic students.
• The investigators found that "Mr. Sandmann's January 20, 2019, statement appears to accurately reflect the facts surrounding the interactions between the students and the Black Hebrew Israelites."
• As to Nathan Phillips, the reports states "Mr. Phillips' public interviews contain some inconsistencies, and we have not been able to resolve them or verify his comments due to our inability to contact him."
In other words, almost every single detail provided by the mainstream media, that resulted in inciting liberals and celebrities (I know, mostly the same thing!) into threatening the Catholic students, was false aka "fake news."
The media saw the MAGA hats, got triggered and ran with a false narrative without even bothering to investigate it. Were it not for a plethora of Independent media sites countering their fake narrative with the full video and the truth, this might have ruined these students lives.
As it stands now, all journalists, media outlets, high profile celebrities and social media accounts, that did not retract or apologize, with many continuing to attack these students, are targets of lawsuits on behalf of Mr. Sandmann and other Covington Catholic high school students' families.
THE MEDIA'S DISMAL REPORTING OF THE FINAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
MRC tracked the initial reporting after the final investigative report was released and found "all three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and principal Spanish-language networks (Telemundo and Univision) omitted the findings from their evening reports.,"
They highlight that CNN mentioned the report briefly "before the 3:00 p.m. hour of CNN Newsroom began," and PBS NewsHour and anchor Judy Woodruff shared some of the investigation’s findings with viewers."
Compare that to the immediate, wall-to-wall coverage, that lasted for days on cable news, broadcast networks, and online publications and newspapers, and it is clear the media is trying to downplay the truth, while they actively worked together to make the fake news go viral on January 19, 2019.
Also compare the reporting online about the final investigative report being released on February 11, 2019. The Google results screen shot at the top of this article showed what comes up when looking for news about the "Covington Catholic students," on the day the initial selectively edited video went viral, and the screen shot below taken from a search of February 11, 2019, the day the report was released.
Not a whole lot of mentions about the final, independent investigation completely exonerating the students of any wrong-doing, while noting the inconsistencies of Mr. Phillips' story, by the mainstream media.
Yet the original reports claiming the students in "MAGA hats" had "surrounded" Phillips, "mocked" him and "taunted," him, are still online, many of which were never corrected or retracted.
The media targeted them for harassment, death threats, threats of violence against their families, and caused the school to shut down immediately after the fake news went viral in the mainstream media, due to security concerns and threats, yet they cannot spend 1/100th of the time reporting the truth of what happened now that the final investigation is over?
BOTTOM LINE
What the media did to these pro-life, Covington Catholic students should be a crime. Their downplaying or even ignoring the actual news that vindicates the students absolutely, is for no other reason than to allow the initial erroneous and fake news continue to fester, while attempting to run away from their utter and complete humiliation over yet another fake news scandal.
Note- While I wasn't going to do another media piece yet, the vindication of these students needs to be reported and spread far and wide, especially after the media made the initial false narrative go viral, and since the liberal media won't do it, we in the Independent Media have to.
Those students deserve to have the final investigation findings publicized. Hopefully their lawyers will be using it in their lawsuits against journalists, celebrities and other high profile social media users.
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