Independent journalist and Quillette editor Andy Ngo was brutally attacked by a mob of antifa thugs in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called for federal investigation of and action against Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler (D).
Cruz also had a message for the leftstream media.
Many “mainstream” outlets ignored, and are still ignoring, the attack on Ngo, and those who do write about it do so in a way that denigrates Ngo, undermines his role as a journalist, and victim-blames.
After an attack on journalist Andy Ngo by Antifa at a rally in Oregon, some journalists have come out in defense of the far-left group and are attempting to smear Ngo as a “fascist-adjacent propagandist.”. . . . After the attack, journalists, many of whom have close connections to antifa themselves, rushed to downplay the significance of the attack. They have downplayed the injuries Ngo sustained, avoided mentioning antifa in the reports, and shifted blame by claiming that Ngo provoked the attack.Jason Wilson is a writer for the Guardian, mentioned by Eoin Lenihan as having close connections to antifa, who wrote a piece about the Andy Ngo. In the piece, antifa is not mentioned once. Wilson refers to the attackers as “left-wing protestors.” The injuries Ngo sustained were downplayed in the piece as well, with no mention of Ngo going to the ER for head trauma. The founding editor of Quillette, Claire Lehmann called the piece “Absolutely shameful.”. . . . Shane Burley, journalist and author of Fascism Today, peddled the claim that Ngo is a “fascist-adjacent propagandist.” His book “looks at the changing world of the far right in Donald Trump’s America” but makes no mention of antifa. Burley was also named by Lenihan as one journalist with close connections to antifa.
There are many, many more such examples. Read the rest.
The Blaze highlights further examples.
Dan O’Sullivan, who has written for Rolling Stone and VICE, among other mainstream outlets, said in a tweet, “Andy Ngo is not a journalist, and in any event he went there hoping for exactly that outcome and for tweets like this.https://twitter.com/Bro_Pair/statuses/1145229170311651328Nathan Bernard, founder of Bernard Media, said Ngo “got his wish”:https://twitter.com/nathanTbernard/statuses/1145097744987672586Anymann Ismail, a Slate writer, reacted:https://twitter.com/aymanndotcom/statuses/1145176047408824321.
Cathy Young at Newsday makes salient points about this type of response.
Others condemned the assault but echoed the same themes: that Ngo is not a real journalist and that he provoked the attack. Charlotte Clymer, a writer and communications staffer for the Human Rights Campaign, the premier LGBT rights group, conceded that “violence is completely wrong,” but referred to Ngo as a “sniveling little weasel” who was asking for it. “I’m also not going to pretend that this wasn’t Ngo’s goal from the start,” she wrote on Twitter Saturday.Clearly, human rights aren’t what they used to be.One can take issue with some of Ngo’s work, as I have. His coverage of the culture wars, while often excellent, tends to go too easy on the right. But if having biases disqualifies one from being a journalist, every one of Ngo’s detractors is far less of a journalist than he is.Ngo’s provocation, apparently, was being an antifa-critical reporter and being present at an antifa protest. No decent person would take a “violence is wrong, but he provoked it” position if we were talking about an anti-Trump journalist beaten up at a Trump rally. It’s a position that effectively makes excuses for violence — something that progressives do at their own peril.It is also worth noting that antifa activists have assaulted journalists who work for mainstream organizations and who incur their wrath while covering protests. Yet some mainstream media outlets still respectfully refer to them as “anti-fascists,” and dismiss claims that antifa is a violent group as a right-wing talking point.
It’s not just the media, Wheeler seems to spreading the idea that Ngo was somehow provoking an attack by being there to report on the protests.
And that’s part of the problem. For these radical leftwing extremists, the mere presence of someone who thinks wrong thoughts is incitement. Indeed, the mere sight of a MAGA hat throws them into uncontrollable rages, as we’ve reported frequently here at LI.
Ngo shared his thoughts about these points with Guy Benson in a radio interview.
Guy Benson: Andy, one of the excuses from the apologists who will mouth a few words of denunciation and then come after you almost as if you were asking for it. They say you’re a sympathizer of white supremacy is that true?Andy Ngo: Absolutely not. This is what I mean when they’re adopting the rhetoric tactics of Antifa it’s to demonize your ideological opponents of quote unquote Nazis or fascists. So then they have the moral legitimacy to attack you and get praised for it in the public.Guy Benson: You are a person of color yourself correct.Andy Ngo: Yes I amGuy Benson: You also happen to be gay. I am as well. It was pride month and then World Pride this past weekend. I know it doesn’t seem like you were attacked because of your sexuality I just wonder Andy if an LGBT journalist had been attacked in the streets by a right wing mob. On Pride weekend. Might that have gotten some attention from gay rights groups have you heard from any mainstream gay rights groups standing up for you and your rights.Andy Ngo: I’ve seen quite the contrary. One of the staff people with the Human Rights Campaign actually put out a tweet that was diminishing what had happened to me. We all know that of course this was a progressive journalists who even received a fraction of what I hate saying about the whole machine of the progressive system would go into overdrive to bring attention to that. I mean you see them do that to. Obviously dubious allegations of hate crimes and then they that turned out to be hoaxes. They’ve gone quite quiet. so. It’s disappointing, but not surprising. I’m not the right type of victim.Guy Benson: Right. The ideology of the victim and the perpetrators in this case it seems like for some people and activists that matters more than the facts of the case which is another example I think of really toxic identity politics. . . .
Ngo gave an interview on Tucker in which he details the horrific attack he experienced.
Watch:
Meanwhile, and despite the explicit videos of Ngo being attacked by a rabid mob of antifa-fasicsts, there are some conspiracy nuts on Twitter who claim it was a rightwing plot.
Here’s the video again:
Michelle Malkin did a frame-by-frame review of the film, identifying the antifa thugs involved in the attack on Ngo; you can review that here.
Meanwhile, Media Matters is trying another tactic. They are calling into question Portland PD’s report that the milkshakes contained cement and are using that to downplay the brutal assault on Ngo. Apparently, if the milkshakes didn’t contain cement, Ngo wasn’t assaulted and didn’t suffer a brain hemorrhage. Or something.
It’s not just the leftstream media who are protecting and making excuses for antifa, Twitter is apparently hot to ban and de-bluecheck users who report on them.
Antifa, for its part, is reportedly planning even more dastardly and evil crimes.
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