Analyzing Early Kyle Rittenhouse Media Coverage
The Dark Art of Crafting a Narrative
“The two men shot dead when white armed extremists disrupted a Black Lives Matter protest and at least one agitator opened fire on a group of protesters in Kenosha have been identified.”
- The Guardian, 8/27/2020
“The two men, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, were killed Tuesday when they tried to intervene during the alleged shooting rampage by the teenager.”
- NBC News, 8/28/2020
The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, and the events that unfolded on the night of August 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, present a uniquely fascinating case study demonstrating how large media corporations are able to skew coverage towards a desired narrative in ways that blatantly misrepresent facts while remaining technically correct as often as possible. The Rittenhouse case is unique, because the events in question are thoroughly documented with video evidence, which should have - in theory - made it particularly resistant to media spin.
Yet the narrative that emerged from some large media outlets over the first few weeks following the Rittenhouse shootings differs substantially from any reasonably accurate interpretation of reality. This narrative has also remained remarkably resilient despite the wide availability of contradictory video evidence and a highly publicized trial. In this post, I’ll examine early online media coverage of the Rittenhouse shootings, from August 26th through early September of 2020, detailing how the media narrative was crafted and how it differs from reality, with a focus on two large media companies, CNN and NBC. I’ll go over individual articles and analyze selected paragraphs, identifying examples of key strategies the media uses to build a false narrative.
I’ll first describe what actually happened in Kenosha on August 25th, 2020, before describing the CNN/NBC coverage of these events. The shootings were captured on video by multiple journalists, but the most relevant sources for the first shooting are the HD drone footage1 along with ground-level footage from Drew Hernandez.2 For the second shooting, Brendan Gutenschwager’s footage3 along with Tayfun Coskun’s high quality still photographs4 are the most relevant sources. When viewing these sources for the first time it can be difficult to make out exactly what is happening without going frame by frame. The New York Times published an excellent “Visual Investigation” that supplements the footage with explanatory graphics.5 Additionally, various supplementary footage is cited below where applicable to provide broader context surrounding the events leading up to the shootings.
The Actual Facts: After the police shooting of Jacob Blake on August 23rd, 2020, civil unrest broke out in Kenosha, Wisconsin, involving protests, riots, arson, looting6, the total destruction of at least 35 small businesses7 and the financial ruin of local families who owned them (most had insufficient insurance to cover property damage of this magnitude8), along with violent assault9 and wanton endangerment of local residents10. Some rioters were armed with guns.11 On August 25th, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17 year old living in Antioch, Illinois (about 20 miles from Kenosha12), was in Kenosha where he obtained an AR-15 rifle from his friend.13 He arrived in downtown Kenosha with the rifle to help protect local businesses and provide medical aid14 alongside other armed civilians.15 At around 11:20 PM, protesters started a fire in a dumpster in front of a gas station. Someone put it out with a fire extinguisher,16 triggering a tense confrontation between armed civilians (apparently there to protect the gas station17) and protesters.18 Joseph Rosenbaum, a 36 year old white man who had spent over a decade in prison for sexually abusing children,19 and had just been released from a Milwaukee hospital after attempting suicide,20 somehow found himself at this same gas station. He aggressively confronted the armed civilians, apparently on the side of the protesters.21 A short time later, Rosenbaum (who was unarmed) chased Rittenhouse into a car lot and cornered him, after which Rittenhouse shot and killed Rosenbaum at close range.22 An eye-witness testified that Rosenbaum had lunged for Rittenhouse’s rifle the moment before Rittenhouse opened fire.23 Rittenhouse then called someone on his cell phone and left the scene, as a nearby witness attended to Rosenbaum.24
Later that night around 11:50, Rittenhouse was running down Sheridan Road towards a group of police much further down the road. Various protesters identified Rittenhouse as the person that had earlier shot someone, and multiple people converged towards Rittenhouse as he ran. Rittenhouse stumbled and fell to the ground25 and a protester kicked him in the head.26 Rittenhouse sat up as two different protesters, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz, both white men, approached him.27 Huber hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard and tried to wrest away his rifle. Rittenhouse fell backwards and shot Huber in the chest, killing him.28 Grosskreutz halted and put his hands up momentarily, then lunged forward towards Rittenhouse while pointing a handgun at him. Rittenhouse shot Grosskreutz in the arm, after which Grosskreutz fled in the opposite direction.29 Rittenhouse then stood up and continued walking towards the police, who were slowly advancing. He approached the police with his hands in the air, but was not arrested. He turned himself in to the Antioch police in Illinois a few hours later, because the Kenosha police station was barricaded.30
The CNN/NBC Narrative: After the police shooting of Jacob Blake on August 23rd, 2020, protests over racial injustice broke out in Kenosha, Wisconsin, involving both peaceful demonstrations and some destruction of property. On August 25th, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, a white supporter of Donald Trump and the “Blue Lives Matter” movement31, arrived in Kenosha illegally brandishing a semi-automatic rifle.32 Egged on by Trumpian rhetoric and misinformation about “far-left agitators”,33 Rittenhouse was inspired to come to Kenosha by a Facebook post that called for “patriots” to defend the town.34 Rittenhouse and other militia-men descended upon Kenosha and began patrolling the streets alongside radical far-right militia groups such as the Boogaloo Bois.35 Following a scuffle near a car dealership, Rittenhouse opened fire on Black Lives Matter protesters, killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz.36 Rosenbaum was from Waco, Texas, and was engaged to be married. Images from his Facebook page show him with his fiancée and young daughter. Rosenbaum’s aunt called him a “precious young man”, and said “he was like a son to me”.37
The CNN/NBC narrative is not entirely false. Some of it is based around a different set of facts selected for emphasis. For example, it is probably true that Rittenhouse supported the Blue Lives Matter movement and idolized the police. Additionally, the CNN/NBC narrative is not necessarily consistent. The above synthesis of CNN/NBC reporting is meant to capture the general impression gleaned from reading articles published online between August 25th and early September of 2020. Any one particular article may give a different impression or report additional details that disrupt the overall narrative to varying degrees. Additionally, some parts of the above synthesized narrative are never expressed directly, but merely implied. For example, neither CNN nor NBC ever directly report that Rittenhouse was definitely inspired by Trump or a member of some right-wing militia. But they do heavily imply this, as we’ll see below. Even the misleading description of the shootings is technically correct: “Following a scuffle near a car dealership, Rittenhouse opened fire on Black Lives Matter protesters.” This is technically true, or at least technically mostly true if we stretch the truth a bit and make Rosenbaum an honorary BLM protester.
CNN never actually reports that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist either (at least not as part of their online non-opinion news content). But they do certainly suggest this conclusion. In general, the early Rittenhouse coverage published by CNN and NBC contains very few bona fide factual errors. Instead, these companies craft their narrative using what I call the four pillars of narrative craft: conflation, omission, misdirection, and selective emphasis. Each of these pillars applies to a different aspect of the Rittenhouse case, and they are generally employed with sufficient competence such that misinformation about basic facts appears to remain incredibly resilient. How many times have you heard that Rittenhouse was a white supremacist?38 Or that Rittenhouse killed black people?39 Or that Rittenhouse showed up to a protest and just started indiscriminately shooting people?40
Of course, without actual polling data, we can’t quantify what percent of people who regularly read online news content from CNN or NBC hold incorrect beliefs about the Rittenhouse case that align with the narratives described here. But the purpose of this post is to document how these media companies used the four pillars of narrative craft to construct a false narrative during the week after the shootings, in spite of widely available video footage.
The Four Pillars of Narrative Craft
The articles I will examine here are all “hard news”; I am not including opinion pieces in this analysis. Before examining individual articles, I’ll describe the four pillars of narrative craft and explain how CNN and NBC have generally applied them to online coverage of the Rittenhouse shootings between August 26th and early September, 2020.
Conflation, a.k.a. Kyle Rittenhouse shot 3 (black?) people: Neither CNN nor NBC ever claim Rittenhouse shot any black people. But they often use suggestive or confusing phrasing or arrange text in such a way as to encourage the reader to surmise that he did. For example, many articles interleave text about the shooting of Jacob Blake (a black man shot by police) with text about the Rittenhouse shootings, telling us that Jacob Blake is black and Rittenhouse is white, while leaving the race of the men shot by Rittenhouse up to the imagination.41 It’s not always clear if this is intentional narrative crafting or just shitty writing, but in some cases it appears absurdly blatant, such as this CNN headline: “A Black man shot in the back, a teenage shooting suspect, a city in flames: The week that shook Kenosha and the country”.42 This title obviously refers to two separate events: the shooting of Jacob Blake (a black man shot in the back), and the Rittenhouse shootings (a teenage shooting suspect). But a casual reader would likely assume the teenage shooting suspect had shot the black man.
Omission, a.k.a Kyle Rittenhouse was an “active shooter” who indiscriminately shot at protesters: When CNN or NBC describe the shootings, they often compress the account and omit key details, giving the impression that Rittenhouse just started psychotically firing at people for unclear reasons. For example: “Videos that circulated on social media show a person with a long gun running down a street, followed by a crowd. The individual falls to the ground and appears to begin firing. Several shots are heard.”43 This description is technically accurate, but incredibly misleading. In other cases, CNN or NBC may include key details that support a stronger case for self-defense, but de-emphasize these details by placing them towards the end of the article, while using the headline or first couple of paragraphs to frame events around their preferred narrative.
Misdirection, a.k.a. the REAL problem is violent right-wing militias, not rioters: Despite at least 30 fatalities and billions of dollars in property damage as a direct result of protests, riots, or civil unrest in 2020,44 CNN and NBC rarely bring up the riots in any of their Rittenhouse coverage. Yet they very often report on the proliferation of “militia and armed anti-government groups”. They warn of vigilantes and “gun-toting amateur groups at protests nationwide45” who are “enflamed by the Trump administration’s often misleading messaging” and liable to incite violence across the nation. While often acknowledging the lack of any direct link, they imply that Rittenhouse is part of a broader trend of dangerous militias and “private paramilitaries” patrolling the streets of American cities.
Selective Emphasis, a.k.a Rittenhouse was a bad guy but the people he shot were heroes or angels: Neither CNN nor NBC claim that Joseph Rosenbaum was a hero or an angel. But they do imply it. They certainly never impugn him by reporting the fact that he spent a decade in prison for sexually abusing children, nor do they mention his bipolar disorder or multiple suicide attempts. But they seem to have done enough research into the life of Mr. Rosenbaum to know that he was originally from Waco, Texas, attended Pima Community College in Arizona, worked at a Wendy’s in Kenosha, and had a fiancée, a daughter, and an aunt who called him a “precious young man”.46 At the same time, neither CNN nor NBC explicitly label Rittenhouse a white supremacist. But they never miss an opportunity to point out that Rittenhouse supports “Blue Lives Matter”, idolizes the police, supports President Trump, uploads TikTok videos of himself posing with guns, and may or may not be associated with right-wing extremist groups with ties to white nationalists.47
With these major pillars in mind, I now turn to the individual articles. In each case, I link to an archived version of the article that preserves how it appeared when it was originally published. Articles are sometimes updated or modified after the fact, and I make note of instances where an article was modified in a way that effects the narrative.
8/26/2020: 2 dead, 1 injured, in Wisconsin protests over shooting of Jacob Blake
Two people were killed and one was injured as shots rang out during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, just before midnight Tuesday, according to the city’s police department, amid anger over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. In another video shared on Twitter, which has been verified by NBC News, a man can be seen sitting in the middle of a street aiming a gun at people who were running along the road. One person appeared to attempt to grab the weapon, then a shot was fired and the individual was seen to collapse a few feet from the shooter.
During this early stage of reporting, it’s difficult to separate intentional narrative crafting from simple confusion as events unfold and new information becomes available. It’s clear that video footage of Rittenhouse shooting Huber and Grosskreutz was widely available on social media at this point. Notably, NBC reports here that an individual attempted to grab the shooter’s gun - a detail that is usually omitted in later reporting. However, NBC also reports that the shooter “can be seen sitting in the middle of a street aiming a gun at people who were running along the road.” This is a bizarre description of the actual video footage48 that was available to NBC at the time. It implies the shooter was just sitting in the street, threatening people with a gun as they ran by (or perhaps as they ran away, fearing for their lives). It’s clear that the “active shooter” narrative was already forming.
The shooting in Kenosha follows a familiar call from an armed militia to “defend a city” during Black Lives Matter-related protests. The Kenosha Guard, a self-described “local militia,” set up a Facebook event, “Armed Citizens to Protect our Lives and Property” and on its main Facebook page on Tuesday, asked, “Any patriots willing to take up arms and defend [our] City tonight from the evil thugs? Nondoubt they are currently planning on the next part of the City to burn tonight!”
…
Militia and armed anti-government groups have seen a sharp proliferation in the U.S. in the last decade. Pledging to protect property, these armed groups, often dressed in military-style camouflage and bulletproof vests, have been visibly present at recent coronavirus Reopen rallies and Black Lives Matter protests, often with the seeming blessing of local police.
Even at this early stage, the right-wing militia narrative is already in full force, emphasizing that the REAL problem™ is violent right-wing militias and vigilantes, rather than violent rioters. NBC links Rittenhouse with a local militia group called the “Kenosha Guard”, which is then linked to a broader nation-wide rise in armed right-wing militias.
This narrative incorporates a laundry list of dubious assumptions. Firstly, there is no evidence Rittenhouse was associated with any group. Secondly, the “Kenosha Guard” was not some pre-existent standing militia. It was an impromptu creation of one guy, Kevin Mathewson, created on Facebook specifically in response to the Kenosha riots and dissolved shortly after the rioting ceased.49 It was closer to a glorified neighborhood watch than a militia. In an interview with CBS, Matthewson said that “I agree with these protesters. I’m sickened by what happened. But the folks that come here, that want to burn down people’s homes, that want to cause millions of dollars in property damage, those are evil thugs to me”.50
More importantly, NBC frames this entire situation around an implicit assumption that Kenosha residents had no legitimate reason to be concerned about riots. Yet rioters in Kenosha were directly responsible for arson51, looting, massive property damage52, the destruction of at least 35 small businesses with insufficient insurance to cover property damage of this magnitude53, the financial ruination of local familes54, violent assault55, and wanton endangerment of local residents56. Some residents of Kenosha (who are clearly not part of any “militia”) can be heard in video footage criticizing the rioters for indiscriminate destruction.57
Finally, of the estimated 34 people killed in 2020 as a result of demonstrations, protests, riots, or civil unrest, the majority were fatally shot within the context of opportunistic crime, altercations spurred by the protests, or encounters with police.58 There were precisely zero protesters killed by armed militia men, or anything remotely approximating armed militia men, unless you count the Rittenhouse shootings.
8/26/2020: Illinois teen arrested in fatal shooting at Kenosha protest, police say
Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis confirmed that a 17-year-old Antioch resident has been charged in a shooting incident and said that the man “was involved in the use of firearms to resolve whatever conflict was in place.” He called the killings “senseless violence” and said he couldn’t say what led to the shooting. The arrest comes less than a day after two people were killed and a third was seriously wounded in the shooting during a protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, police said. The victims were identified as a 26-year-old from Silver Lake, Wisconsin, and a 36-year-old from Kenosha. Several videos from witnesses at the scene showed a person with a long gun opening fire during the protest. Police have not confirmed if Rittenhouse is the person in these videos.
At this point, the video footage of the Huber/Grosskreutz shooting is widely available. This footage clearly shows Rittenhouse stumble and fall, as various protesters angrily shout at him and multiple people begin assaulting him. The article even includes a photo of “jump-kick man”, who kicked Rittenhouse after he fell. Yet the possibility that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense is not even raised.
The article shows us this photo with an accompanying caption:
The caption says: A man with a gun takes aim at another person during a third night of protests in Kenosha.
Here we see Rittenhouse sitting on the ground, aiming his rifle, and Grosskreutz standing with his hands in the air. It appears as if Grosskreutz is surrendering. Yet, anyone who has seen the video footage knows that the moment captured here is part of a very brief standoff between Rittenhouse and Grosskreutz, lasting no more than a few seconds. Grosskreutz momentarily put his hands up, then seconds later lunged forward while aiming a handgun at Rittenhouse, after which Rittenhouse shot him in the arm.59 By showing us this photograph of Grosskreutz with his hands up, along with a caption ominously telling us that Rittenhouse “takes aim”, and providing no additional details, CNN leads us to believe that Grosskreutz surrendered but Rittenhouse shot him anyway.
The photo is one of the still photographs taken by Tayfun Coskun, and widely used across various news websites.60 The caption, however, was written by CNN. CNN should have been aware that Grosskreutz had a handgun, and that he lunged towards Rittenhouse a few frames later, before Rittenhouse fired. Additional photos taken by Coskun (but not shown by CNN in this article) show Grosskreutz in close proximity to Rittenhouse, and Grosskreutz holding the handgun with an injured arm a bit later.
It’s possible CNN didn’t have access to all of these photographs at the time. Many of Coskun’s photos appeared across various news sites61 by August 26th when this article was published, but perhaps CNN did not yet have the entire set. In any case, the video footage from Brendan Gutenschwager was certainly available, and CNN even mentions it by name in this article. This footage shows Grosskreutz lunging towards Rittenhouse after momentarily putting his hands up, suggesting Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. Additionally, by August 27th, both the New York Times and the Intercept had correctly concluded that Grosskreutz had a handgun62 using only the Brendan Gutenschwager footage.
CNN’s decision to use the photo of Grosskreutz with his hands up, captioned with “a man with a gun takes aim at another person” (bereft of any additional context), strongly implies that Rittenhouse essentially executed Grosskreutz.
CNN then quotes someone named CJ Halliburton, a Facebook Live streamer who was nearby when the shooting occurred.
Halliburton ran in the direction of the gunshots with other demonstrators in an attempt to see what had happened. As he inches closer to a gathering crowd, several more gunshots can be heard in the video. “He shot that guy in the stomach,” Halliburton says in the video. In the distance, a man can be heard yelling, “I need a medic,” followed by another round of gunshots. “People are getting shot all around us,” Halliburton says in the video. “People are just getting shot everywhere guys.”
This further misleads the reader to imagine some psychotic active shooter indiscriminately shooting people. In combination with the above photo of Rittenhouse aiming at Grosskreutz, CNN has crafted this article to suggest the shooter was on a violent rampage, killing protesters at random. Yet clearly CNN knew this was not the case, because they had the Brendan Gutenschwager footage.
CNN continues:
A separate video filmed by Brendan Gutenschwager shows the moments after shots have already been fired and captures a man walking down the street with a long gun when he falls to the ground. From a seated position, the video shows the man fires his weapon, jumps back to his feet and continues to walk down the street brandishing his weapon. The sound of several more gunshots is heard.
Amazingly, CNN then informs us that Rittenhouse gets back up, and continues walking down the street while “brandishing” his weapon. We are then told that “several more gunshots” can be heard. This suggests that after executing Grosskreutz, Rittenhouse got up and continued his murderous rampage, indiscriminately firing at people. Yet the actual video footage makes it clear that these additional gunshots were not coming from Rittenhouse, but rather from unknown sources nearby.
At this point we know that CNN has the Brendan Gutenschwager footage that clearly shows Rittenhouse being pursued and assaulted by several people before he fires. Yet CNN never once mentions that anyone attacked Rittenhouse at all. All we are told is that Rittenhouse was just “walking down the street” when he just “fell to the ground” and started shooting at people. “People are just getting shot everywhere guys.” Then we’re told he got up, possibly shot some more people, and surrendered to police.
And so without technically telling a single actual lie, CNN has cleverly omitted key facts, made tactical use of a photograph and caption, and employed selective quoting to paint a picture suggesting Rittenhouse was a psychotic active shooter, rampaging through Kenosha while firing indiscriminately. (You have to admire their skillful narrative craft here.) Of course, these events had just happened and new information was constantly emerging, so perhaps we should extend some benefit of the doubt to CNN here. Yet somehow the New York Post, in an article published on the same day, managed to accurately report that Rittenhouse fell to the ground while being chased by protesters, where he was kicked in the head and battered with a skateboard before shooting two of the protesters.63
8/26/2020: 17-year-old arrested in connection with fatal shooting at Jacob Blake protest in Kenosha
In another video posted on Twitter, which has been verified by NBC News, a man can be seen sitting in the middle of a street aiming a gun at people who are running. One person appears to try to grab the weapon; then a shot is fired and the person appears to collapse on the ground a few feet from the shooter.
This NBC article omits key details, telling us only that a man is “sitting in the middle of a street aiming a gun at people who are running”. Presumably, we are meant to imagine the people are running away from the gunman, fearing for their lives. Once again, the “psychotic active shooter” narrative emerges. At least NBC accurately reports that one person tries to grab the weapon. Unfortunately, no context or sequence of events is provided; we are never told that protesters were chasing Rittenhouse or that he fell and was assaulted. So when NBC reports that “someone tried to grab the weapon”, they may as well be talking about someone who “tried to grab the weapon” from one of the Columbine shooters.
The video showed that at least one other person was shot before the shooter got up and walked down a street. The video did not show what happened before the gunfire, and NBC News has not confirmed whether the incident is the same shooting described by police.
It’s certainly understandable that at this early stage (only one day after the shootings) there would be significant confusion surrounding the two shooting incidents. Yet we also know that NBC had the Brendan Gutenschwager footage. And we know that other news outlets such as the New York Post64, along with local affiliates like CBS Chicago65, were able to coherently describe the sequence of events surrounding the second shooting at least. Both of these media outlets accurately clarified that Rittenhouse shot at protesters after they chased him down and assaulted him. Yet NBC News tells us that Rittenhouse was just “sitting in the middle of a street aiming a gun at people” when he shot someone after they tried to take his rifle.
NBC’s attempt to craft a “psychotic active shooter” narrative seems much clumsier than CNN’s finely engineered propaganda. Yet ultimately, when we read that Rittenhouse was “sitting in the middle of a street aiming a gun at people who are running”, we can only imagine Rittenhouse as a violent maniac.
8/26/2020: Teen arrested in Kenosha shooting promoted “Blue Lives Matter,” posed with firearms online
On Wednesday, Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois, was arrested and faces a warrant alleging first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the shooting deaths of two people during protests over the shooting by police of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
This paragraph interleaves the shooting of Jacob Blake with the Rittenhouse shootings, potentially prompting a casual reader to subconsciously come away with the impression that Rittenhouse shot black people in Kenosha. In an earlier paragraph we are told that Rittenhouse is white, and now we are told that Jacob Blake is black, but we are never told the race of the two people Rittenhouse shot.
In one video, the man runs from a group of people while talking on a cellphone. “I just killed somebody,” he seems to say. In another, more graphic, video, the man runs down a street while being chased. He falls and begins to shoot, and one person collapses nearby.
After reporting that Rittenhouse was caught on video admitting that he killed somebody, NBC turns to the Huber/Grosskreutz shootings and attempts to craft a weaker version of the “active shooter” narrative. We are now informed, at least, that Rittenhouse was being chased. But NBC once again omits key details. Who was chasing him? Was it like one guy? Or an entire angry mob of protesters? All we are told is that Rittenhouse admitted to killing someone, then at some point fell down as one or more people chased him, and then started shooting. At no point are we told that Rittenhouse was assaulted before he began to shoot. And of course, once again, we know that NBC had the Brendan Gutenschwager footage that clearly demonstrates the second shooting was in self-defense. At this point, we also know NBC had some version of the Rosenbaum footage as well, because they mention Rittenhouse saying “I killed somebody” over his cellphone. This happened immediately after Rosenbaum was shot.66
Numerous videos from the streets of Kenosha on Tuesday evening showed groups of armed white men in military-style gear standing outside businesses in the city, and they recorded confrontations between militia members and protesters.
And here we go with this again. NBC now attempts to frame these events around a broader narrative: the REAL problem™ facing America is actually armed, right-wing white militia groups - not violent rioters who regularly commit arson every night. This narrative completely ignores many key facts:
In Kenosha at least, the “militia” known as the Kenosha Guard67 was an impromptu group of ordinary Kenosha residents responding to a Facebook post68 who came to downtown Kenosha to help curb the ongoing massive property damage and destruction that rioters were inflicting on local businesses with impunity. Ultimately, over 100 businesses were damaged and at least 35 were totally destroyed, amounting to $50 million in damages.69 According to the New York Times, most small businesses in Kenosha that were damaged or destroyed were under-insured.70 Many business owners and their families were ruined financially by the Kenosha riots, particularly middle-class and minority business-owners. The rioters also endangered the lives of local residents, such as the tenants living above a Palestinian-owned electronics shop in Kenosha that was burned down. The tenants managed to get out in time, but many pets died in the fire.71
Of the estimated 34 people killed in 2020 as a result of demonstrations, protests, riots, or civil unrest, the majority were fatally shot within the context of opportunistic crime, altercations spurred by the protests, or encounters with police.72 There were zero protesters killed by armed, right-wing militias, unless you count the Rittenhouse shootings. The murder of Garret Foster by Daniel Perry is really the only (non-Rittenhouse related) incident in 2020 that remotely approximates a right-wing extremist killing a protester.73
Right-wing militia members were hardly the only people showing up to protests with guns. Left-wing protesters showed up in Kenosha armed with rifles.74 And BLM protester Garret Foster attended protests in Austin armed with an AK-47.75
Rittenhouse also seems to have posted videos to several TikTok accounts. One account, with a bio that read “Trump 2020, and BLUE LIVES MATTER,” featured several videos of Rittenhouse shooting guns.
Well that settles it then. He likes Trump and films himself shooting guns?? Guilty.
8/27/2020: Kenosha shooting suspect faces more homicide charges
Videos that circulated on social media show a person with a long gun running down a street, followed by a crowd. The individual falls to the ground and appears to begin firing. Several shots are heard.
By this point, analysts at CNN have had access to the Brendan Gutenschwager footage for over 24 hours. The footage clearly shows that Rittenhouse fell to the ground, was kicked in the head, assaulted with a skateboard, and only fired in self-defense as Anthony Huber attempted to wrest away his rifle. Yet according to this absurd description, which once again omits almost every relevant fact, Rittenhouse was running down the street, “followed” (not chased!) by a crowd. Rittenhouse falls to the ground, then just randomly begins firing at people.
Social media accounts believed to belong to the suspect portray a young White man with an affinity for guns who supports “Blue Lives Matter” and President Donald Trump.
Oh CNN…
[Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul] said the community deserved a chance to heal and called for “heavily armed vigilantes, arsonists, and other opportunists” who came to Kenosha to “spur chaos” to leave. “If those engaging in violence and destruction of property believe they are furthering some broader goal, they are wrong,” Kaul said.
CNN quotes the Wisconsin Attorney General, who condemns armed vigilantes, arsonists, “other opportunists” looking to spur chaos, and those “engaging in violence and destruction of property”. Three of these four things do not apply to Rittenhouse. They apply to the rioters in Kenosha. Yet this entire article has been discussing Rittenhouse, his affinity for guns, and the fact that community members in Kenosha had asked the Kenosha County Sheriff to deputize armed citizens. Thus, in context, this quote from the Wisconsin Attorney General condemning “heavily armed vigilantes” appears to be also condemning armed civilians like Rittenhouse and the militia members for arson, violence, and destruction of property.
8/28/2020: Two men killed at Jacob Blake protest identified by authorities
This one is really incredible.
The two men, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, were killed Tuesday when they tried to intervene during the alleged shooting rampage by the teenager. A third man, Gaige P. Grosskreutz, was also wounded in the attack.
(Emphasis mine.) Here Rosenbaum and Huber are portrayed as innocent heroes who valiantly tried to stop an active shooter engaged in a violent rampage.
By this point, NBC had access to the Brendan Gutenschwager video for 48 hours. The video clearly shows that Rittenhouse fell to the ground as protesters swarmed towards him. He was kicked in the head, hit with a skateboard, and then fired as Anthony Huber tried to wrest away the rifle. NBC also had access to the Rosenbaum footage for at least 24 hours, which shows that Rittenhouse was running away from Rosenbaum. To describe any of these events captured on video as a “shooting rampage” transcends the realm of misrepresentation into an actual lie. Moreover, to report that Rosenbaum in any sense intervened during a shooting rampage is outright factually inaccurate. There is no evidence that Rittenhouse had fired a single shot at the point when Rosenbaum first “intervened” (i.e. began chasing Rittenhouse).
Cellphone videos from the demonstration Tuesday night showed Rosenbaum approaching the teen, who was carrying an AR-15 style rifle, according to the charging documents, and Rosenbaum appeared to throw a plastic bag at him before the latter opened fire. Rosenbaum was struck several times.
NBC informs us that Rosenbaum merely “approached” Rittenhouse and harmlessly threw a plastic bag at him, after which Rittenhouse shot him several times. There is no context or any sense of distance. NBC’s description gives us the impression that Rittenhouse was a trigger-happy maniac looking for any excuse to kill someone, who shot Rosenbaum several times for throwing a plastic bag. Yet we know that NBC had access to video footage of the Rosenbaum shooting, which clearly shows that Rittenhouse was fleeing from Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum chased Rittenhouse into a car lot and cornered him. Rittenhouse fired after Rosenbaum came into close proximity.
Furthermore, NBC was now aware of the identity of Joseph Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum spent a decade in jail for sexually abusing children76, was recently hospitalized for attempting suicide, suffered from bi-polar disorder,77 and can be seen on video behaving aggressively shortly before the shooting occurred.78 His criminal record and mental condition are clearly relevant to this case. Not all of this information was available on August 28th when NBC published this article, but Rosenbaum’s extensive criminal record was public knowledge at the time. Rosenbaum’s criminal history is publicly available via the Arizona Department of Corrections website.79 Moreover, video footage of Rosenbaum behaving erratically shortly before the shooting was widely available on social media.
Perhaps NBC simply didn’t have time to thoroughly research Rosenbaum’s history. Rosenbaum’s identity was only available for about 24 hours at the time this article was published. Yet conservative news outlets managed to report his criminal history that day80 and local news outlets reported it a day earlier.81 Moreover, NBC clearly did some research on Rosenbaum, and they were happy to report that:
Rosenbaum was from Waco, Texas, according to his Facebook profile, and was engaged to be married. According to the profile, he studied at Pima Community College, in Tucson, Arizona, and started working at Wendy’s in Kenosha last year. Several images posted to Rosenbaum’s page showed him with his fiancée and young daughter. In an interview with NBC News, Shirley Ann Eubank, Rosenbaum’s aunt, called him a “precious young man.” “I loved him dearly,” she said. “He was like a son to me. It is so very sad that this country has gotten so out of control.”
Wow, Rosenbaum really seems like a wonderful guy. I’m impressed the tireless journalists at NBC were able to dig up all of this useful information about Rosenbaum and track down his aunt in only 24 hours. Oddly, they bring up Rosenbaum’s fiancée and daughter, but omit the fact that Rosenbaum’s fiancée had pressed charges against him a month earlier for domestic abuse.82
After the shooting, people followed the teen, identifying him as the shooter to authorities, the documents said. Among them was Huber, who was carrying a skateboard in one hand and trying to grab the teen’s gun with the other. The teen opened fire, killing Huber, the documents said. In an interview Thursday, Huber’s friend Tim Kramer, 26, called him a hero — someone who saw a shooter and put his life on the line to try and stop him.
CNN continues to craft the “active shooter narrative”, while portraying Anthony Huber as a valiant hero who sacrificed his life in an attempt to take down a violent maniac. In this paragraph, CNN omits various relevant facts, including:
Rittenhouse was running towards the police, away from a crowd of angry protesters converging around him.
Rittenhouse fell, was kicked in the head, after which Huber hit him with a skateboard.
Additionally, the entire “civilians bravely try to take down active shooter” narrative is based on an additional false narrative about the Rosenbaum shooting.
At a news conference Thursday, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes described Rittenhouse as an “outside agitator” who fired on peaceful protesters. He “came in from Illinois with a long rifle and was able to just walk the streets, freely, like that’s something normal we should just come to expect,” Barnes said.
CNN quotes Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Barnes because his statement aligns with their narrative. Barnes incorrectly claims Rittenhouse brought the rifle from Illinois, when in fact he picked it up in Wisconsin.83 Moreover, describing Rosenbaum, Huber or Grosskreutz as “peaceful protesters” is not accurate. They were acting in unison with a chaotic throng of people involved in arson84, looting85, destruction of small businesses (most of which did not have insurance to cover property damage of this magnitude86), and wanton endangerment of local residents.87 Rittenhouse was allowed to “walk the streets freely” with a rifle as per WI Stat § 948.60(3)(c). Finally, many people on the streets of Kenosha brought guns, including left-wing protesters.88
Just before midnight Tuesday, a young male clutching a long rifle wandered around the dark streets of Kenosha in a backward baseball cap and a green T-shirt. Protesters in the Wisconsin city were demanding justice after an officer shot local resident Jacob Blake seven times in the back while his children watched from his car. ... Then things took a deadly turn. The teenager with the long gun scuffled with people near a car dealership and opened fire, allegedly killing two people and wounding a third, a criminal complaint says.
CNN’s “psychotic active shooter” narrative is fully formed at this point. By August 28th, widely available video footage had made the sequence of events pretty clear: Rittenhouse shot three people at very close range in self-defense after they chased him, or chased and attacked him while trying to wrest his gun away. Yet CNN tells us that Rittenhouse “wandered around the dark streets of Kenosha”, encouraging us to imagine a hunter or serial killer, wandering the streets at night, stalking his prey. Of course, there’s no video evidence of Rittenhouse doing anything that would normally be described as “wandering”. He’s mostly standing in front of a damaged business89, providing medical aid,90 putting out fires,91 or running away from angry rioters.92
CNN also frames the entire event around protesters “demanding justice” over the shooting of Jacob Blake, omitting the fact that throughout the preceding 48 hours, rioters had engaged in arson93, looting94, destruction of small businesses (most of which did not have insurance to cover property damage of this magnitude95), violent assault96 and wanton endangerment of local residents97.
Finally, CNN once again compresses the sequence of events while omitting key facts, reducing the incident to “the teenager with the long gun scuffled with people near a car dealership and opened fire, allegedly killing two people and wounding a third.” This encourages the reader to imagine a psychopathic version of Kyle Rittenhouse that got into a minor “scuffle” with some people and then just started shooting at them. This description transcends misrepresentation, becoming an outright lie by falsely describing the events as a single shooting incident at a car dealership, rather than two separate incidents at different locations, both of which occurred while Rittenhouse was running away from the person(s) that ended up dead. CNN cites the criminal complaint as support for their description, but the criminal complaint describes two separate incidents, both of which involved Rittenhouse running away from people.98
Even as police and emergency vehicles raced to the scene and chaotic videos of the fatal encounter appeared on social media, the armed suspect slipped past a group of officers unnoticed. He was arrested 30 miles away in Antioch, Illinois.
By reporting that Rittenhouse “slipped past a group of officers unnoticed”, CNN furthers the active shooter narrative, encouraging us to imagine that Rittenhouse was trying to evade the police. Yet video footage clearly shows Rittenhouse walking directly towards police with his hands up.99 The Kenosha police instruct Rittenhouse to keep away100, later explaining that they didn’t realize what he was doing101 and that it was a chaotic scene.102 Finally, CNN reports that Rittenhouse “was arrested 30 miles away”, encouraging us to imagine he was on the run and avoiding arrest but the police nonetheless managed to track him down and arrest him. In reality, Rittenhouse turned himself in to the Antioch police in Illinois shortly after leaving Kenosha.103
Interestingly, CNN updated this article a day later, changing the above quoted paragraph:
8/29 updated version: Even as police and emergency vehicles raced to the scene and chaotic videos of the fatal encounter appeared on social media, the armed suspect walked past a group of officers unnoticed. He was arrested 30 miles away in Antioch, Illinois.
This version is less grievously inaccurate, but inaccurate nonetheless. Rittenhouse was not “unnoticed” by officers; they instructed him to keep away when he tried to approach them.104 Additionally, the fact that Rittenhouse turned himself in remains omitted.
[Rittenhouse’s lawyer, John] Pierce is a noted conservative lawyer whose firm has represented Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Tulsi Gabbard’s Presidential campaign, and former professional baseball player Lenny Dykstra.
CNN signals to readers that we should disapprove of Kyle Rittenhouse’s lawyer.
Social media accounts believed to belong to [Kyle Rittenhouse] portray a young White man with an affinity for guns who supports “Blue Lives Matter” and President Donald Trump.
CNN signals to readers that we should disapprove of Kyle Rittenhouse. Note that Rittenhouse’s race is specifically mentioned, yet we are never told the race of Joseph Rosenbaum or Anthony Huber, despite the fact that Rosenbaum is mentioned 7 times and Huber is mentioned 8 times.
Starting with the fifteenth paragraph of this article, we are finally told some accurate details about the second shooting that sort of disrupt the “active shooter” narrative. We are told that Rittenhouse was being chased and fell, and that Anthony Huber was trying to grab Rittenhouse’s gun when Rittenhouse shot him. This contradicts the description provided earlier in the third paragraph of the same article that misleadingly implies Rittenhouse indiscriminately started shooting people near a car dealership after getting into a “scuffle”. Hopefully, some CNN readers actually read past the fifteenth paragraph.
Yet even those readers who make it to the fifteenth paragraph will end up misinformed about the shooting of Grosskreutz, which is described as follows:
After shooting Huber, the suspect points his gun at a third male approaching the suspect, later identified as Gaige Grosskreutz, the complaint says. He was shot in the right arm and takes off in the opposite direction screaming for a medic while the defendant walks away, the complaint alleges.
Again, this description implies that Grosskreutz was shot merely for “approaching” Rittenhouse. It provides no sense of distance and omits key details, such as the fact that Grosskreutz had a handgun, and was shot after lunging towards Rittenhouse while pointing the handgun at him.105
8/31/2020: Biden says Trump can’t stop violence he has “fomented” for years
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, is accused of having opened fire Tuesday during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, killing two people. Rittenhouse attended the protests armed with a long gun as militiamen descended upon the town in the name of protecting businesses from damage. Rittenhouse was arrested and charged with two counts of homicide, among other charges, in connection with the shooting at the protest.
This NBC article advances the “active shooter” narrative, omitting key details and encouraging us to assume Rittenhouse just randomly began shooting at innocent protesters. We are told the shooting occurred at a Black Lives Matter protest, but we are not told the race of the two individuals killed. NBC tells us that militiamen “descended upon the town”, evoking imagery of a military assault or invasion.106
Given the cataclysmic destruction107 left in the wake of the Kenosha riots, it would be more accurate to say the rioters “descended upon the town”.
The images referenced 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, the white teenager who allegedly killed the men amid protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man.
This paragraph is confusingly worded, bringing up the Rittenhouse shootings and the shooting of Jacob Blake in a single sentence, encouraging an uninformed reader to subconsciously surmise that Rittenhouse shot black men. Once again, we are told that Rittenhouse is white and Jacob Blake is black, but the race of the two men shot by Rittenhouse is left to the imagination.
9/1/2020: Where protesters go, armed militias, vigilantes likely to follow with little to stop them
Prosecutors say Kyle Rittenhouse, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, killed two people and injured another person on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, when he opened fire Aug. 25 during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
NBC starts off with another iteration of the “active shooter” narrative. Key details are omitted. We are simply told Rittenhouse “opened fire” during a protest and killed people.
Wisconsin law stipulates that the minimum age for legal armed carry is 18. Even though Rittenhouse is just 17, he stood that night with other armed civilians who declared that they were out protecting property.
NBC claims that Rittenhouse, as a 17 year old, was not legally allowed to carry a rifle in Wisconsin. This is factually incorrect. While WI Stat § 948.60(2)(a) makes it a Class A misdemeanor for a minor to carry a “dangerous weapon” (defined in WI Stat § 948.60(1) to include any firearm), WI Stat § 948.60(3)(c) explicitly makes an exception for rifles and shotguns that don’t violate WI Stat § 941.28. In other words, a 17 year old can legally possess a rifle in Wisconsin, as long as the rifle has a barrel at least 16 inches long. Rittenhouse’s AR-15 rifle was in compliance with this law. In fact, Rittenhouse did not violate any Wisconsin gun laws, which is why this charge against him was thrown out in court.108
Unorganized militias are not a new phenomenon, but they have gained increasing attention and support over the last few decades. Modern militias and individual vigilantes appeared in the early 1990s positioning themselves as contrary to the federal government. After a period of relative quiet, they re-emerged over the last decade in a more visible role not only in several high-profile protests, including those by Black Lives Matter supporters, but also in less-known local disputes in towns around the country from Utah to New Mexico. The groups are self-anointed, weapons-bearing so-called enforcers of order with very little stopping them, experts who study militias say.
NBC provides an in depth analysis of the rise of American militia groups over the past few decades. This is interesting information, but within the context of the Rittenhouse case, the purpose of providing this information is to craft the narrative that the REAL problem™ of our time is crazy right-wing militias, not rioters. The article brings up the sieges in Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas, along with modern militia groups such as the Oath Keepers.
A threat analysis of current militia groups is beyond the scope of this post, but bringing this up within the context of the Rittenhouse incident is a complete misdirection for the following reasons:
The armed civilians in Kenosha guarding businesses were not necessarily associated with any larger, organized militia group. Some of them may have been associated with a group called the “Kenosha Guard”109, which was not a pre-existent standing militia. It was a bunch of ordinary guys that responded to a Facebook post110 from Kenosha resident Kevin Mathewson, who was concerned about destruction in downtown Kenosha.111 The group was created specifically to address the Kenosha riots and disappeared once the riots were over. Interactions with armed civilians caught on video suggest they were concerned about property damage,112 a concern shared by ordinary (unarmed) civilians in Kenosha that night.113
There is no video evidence that any of the “militia” members in Kenosha instigated violence; all of their actions (standing guard, putting out fires, etc.) appear defensive. At one point, there was a tense standoff between armed civilians and rioters, which started after a “militia” member intervened when rioters recklessly started a fire in front of a gas station.114
Of the 34 people killed in 2020 as a result of demonstrations, protests, riots or civil unrest, the majority were fatally shot within the context of opportunistic crime, altercations spurred by the protests, or encounters with police.115 There were zero protesters killed by militia members or anything resembling militia members, unless you count the Rittenhouse shootings.
Regardless of any threats posed to national security by domestic organized militias, these groups had a negligible impact on the civil unrest, protests and riots of 2020. The vast majority of destruction, death, and loss of livelihood was directly caused by rioters. NBC brings up the threat of organized militias as a misdirection, to distract from the economic ruin brought on by the riots and to shift blame towards a more politically palatable target.
A different militia group was front and center in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 during the Unite the Right rally, which turned deadly when a far-right extremist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one and leaving 19 others injured.
Next, NBC brings up the 2017 white nationalist/neo-Nazi rally held in Charlottesville, implicitly conflating the white nationalist groups that attended this event with the broader phenomenon of organized militias, leading the reader to surmise that most militias are comprised of white nationalists, and by extension, that the Kenosha Guard and possibly Kyle Rittenhouse are white nationalists as well. At this point, NBC has crafted a false narrative built upon several underlying layers of additional false narratives, ultimately encouraging the impression that Kyle Rittenhouse is probably a Nazi.
Leaving aside the fact that Kyle Rittenhouse was not associated with any group, and the fact that the Kenosha Guard was more of a glorified neighborhood watch than a militia, the actual militias in America are generally not white nationalist organizations. The largest militia in America, the “Oath Keepers”, mentioned by NBC in this article, makes it pretty clear they do not espouse white nationalism.116 When some members of the Oath Keepers showed up in Ferguson, Missouri during the Black Lives Matter riots, one of them tried to convince black protesters to carry guns, and attempted to organize an open-carry gun-rights march alongside the black residents of Ferguson.117 The march never really materialized, and it seems that the Oath Keeper leadership was against the idea, but these people hardly seem like white nationalists.
The title of this CNN article confusingly conflates the shooting of Jacob Blake with the Rittenhouse incident. While an informed reader would understand that the “black man shot in the back” and the “teenage shooting suspect” refer to two separate incidents, a casual or uninformed reader would naturally be led to assume that this “teenage shooting suspect” shot a black man in the back.
It took less than five minutes from a 911 call being placed reporting a domestic disturbance to a White officer firing seven times into Jacob Blake’s back in front of the 29-year-old Black man’s three young sons. Those five minutes on August 23 set off chaos in Kenosha, Wisconsin: Protests and looting spread through the lakeside city’s streets, leaving burnt and boarded-up buildings across a swath of downtown. Two days later, the encounter sparked another tragedy, when a 17-year-old who claimed to be defending a business shot three other people during a confrontation, killing two.
Surprisingly, CNN actually brings up the looting and burnt buildings. But they interleave the story of Jacob Blake with the story of Rittenhouse in a way that could easily leave a casual or uninformed reader with the impression that Rittenhouse shot black people. This paragraph clearly tells us that Jacob Blake is black, and the police officer who shot him is white. Further down we are told that Rittenhouse is white, but once again the race of the two people he killed is never mentioned.
But family and lawyers for Blake, who was left paralyzed from the waist down, say he was unarmed and was attending a birthday party for one of his kids. “They shot my son seven times. Seven times. Like he didn’t matter,” Jacob Blake Sr., Blake’s father, told reporters. “But my son matters. He’s a human being, and he matters.”
Confusion also spread about the shooting during the protests, with critics asking how the White teenager armed with a military-style rifle, Kyle Rittenhouse, could have walked by police after gunning down two people -- even as right-wing commentators called him a hero who was just defending himself.
The article continues to interleave reporting about Jacob Blake with reporting about Rittenhouse. Underneath a photograph of Jacob Blake’s father, who is clearly black, CNN quotes an emotional plea spoken by Blake’s father at a press conference. The next paragraph suddenly shifts back to the Rittenhouse shooting, where Rittenhouse is described as a “White teenager armed with a military-style rifle” who gunned down two people. The race of these two people is left to the imagination.
The article then shifts the topic to racial inequalities in Kenosha, bringing up the shooting of Jacob Blake and the economic plight of black Kenosha residents as symptoms of broader systemic racism. This focuses attention on racial injustice and primes the reader to expect each topic to have some relevance towards racial injustice. When the Rittenhouse shooting is brought up within this context, the reader is strategically informed that Rittenhouse was white. The reader is thus subliminally prompted to surmise that Rittenhouse must have killed black people, and is never told otherwise.
The article further encourages this assumption by juxtaposing and comparing the Rittenhouse shooting with the shooting of Jacob Blake:
Just as in police officers’ encounter with Blake, many of the details surrounding the fatal shooting amid the chaotic protests are still unclear, and political actors have used the confusion to push their own narratives. But there’s no dispute that 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse fired the shots that killed two protesters and injured a third.
The article explicitly compares Blake to the two protesters killed by Rittenhouse. An uninformed reader will naturally infer that the two protesters Rittenhouse shot were black unless explicitly told otherwise.
The article eventually provides a description of the shootings of Rosenbaum and Huber, faithfully reinforcing the “active shooter” narrative:
According to the criminal complaint against Rittenhouse, which is based on videos and witness accounts, the situation turned deadly after the teenager scuffled with protesters near a car dealership. He allegedly shot Joseph Rosenbaum, a 36-year-old unarmed protester, after Rosenbaum threw an object that appeared to be a plastic bag at him and missed.
CNN encourages us to believe that during the course of a “scuffle”, Rosenbaum threw a harmless plastic bag at Rittenhouse, and then Rittenhouse psychotically retaliated by shooting Rosenbaum. Naturally, key details are omitted, such as the fact that Rosenbaum (a bi-polar, suicidal, child molester who is on video acting quite aggressively shortly before the shooting) chased and cornered Rittenhouse, who only then shot Rosenbaum at close range after Rosenbaum lunged for the rifle.118 Keep in mind, this article was published on September 4th, 2020, when video footage of both shootings had been widely available for over a week and Rosenbaum’s criminal history was widely reported elsewhere.
Interestingly, in this paragraph the words “criminal complaint” are a hyperlink. You might be thinking that CNN helpfully links to the actual criminal complaint against Kyle Rittenhouse. But of course, they can’t do that. The criminal complaint provides a much more accurate description of the shootings,119 which would disrupt the CNN narrative. Instead, if you click the words “criminal complaint”, you are (mis-)directed to another CNN article.
Narrative Failure
The cumulative effect of the Rittenhouse coverage published by CNN and NBC, in the weeks after the shooting incident, creates the impression that Rittenhouse showed up to a BLM protest, got into some minor altercation, and then just opened fire, indiscriminately shooting peaceful protesters. The CNN/NBC coverage also cultivates a broader narrative, suggesting that the Rittenhouse shootings followed inevitably from the rise of heavily armed white militias, inspired by the Trump Administration to terrorize black people and left-wing protesters.
I’ve focused specifically on CNN and NBC because their coverage is particularly manipulative. As documented in this post, they avoid outright lying for the most part, while strategically employing the four pillars of narrative craft: conflation, omission, misdirection, and selective emphasis. Despite the plethora of video evidence on social media and YouTube documenting exactly what happened in Kenosha that night, CNN never links to any of the actual video footage (at least not in any of the articles I analyzed). They don’t even link to the actual criminal complaint against Rittenhouse. Most of the links found within CNN articles link to other CNN articles, not primary sources. The only visuals they provide of the shootings in Kenosha are carefully selected still photographs from the set provided by Tayfun Coskun.120
CNN’s decision to strictly control the information provided to the reader may be financially motivated (preventing the reader from leaving CNN’s website increases ad revenue), but it also serves to protect the narrative. Not every left-leaning news outlet or journalist covered the Rittenhouse case in such an egregious manner. The New York Times published an excellent “visual investigation”, breaking down the sequence of events leading to the second shooting. An article published by the Intercept on August 27th, 2020 (two days after the shootings), links to the Brenden Gutenschwager footage showing the second shooting, along with various Twitter threads from journalists in Kenosha documenting events as they unfolded. The Intercept article also more or less accurately describes how the second shooting unfolded. The author is nonetheless appalled by Rittenhouse’s actions and rejects a self-defense interpretation of the events.
Despite being familiar with the video evidence and linking to it throughout the article, the Intercept author views Rittenhouse as an active shooter and argues that Anthony Huber was unjustly murdered while attempting to incapacitate Rittenhouse. This interpretation hinges on whether or not the first shooting (involving Rosenbaum) is interpreted as self defense. The author links to video footage of the Rosenbaum shooting121 which clearly shows Rittenhouse running away from Rosenbaum, but nonetheless adamantly rejects a self defense interpretation. I disagree with the author’s conclusion, but I have less of a problem with this article because it correctly describes the events of the second shooting and provides links to video footage, rather than obsessively attempting to control the narrative by omitting key details. The author even admits that Grosskreutz had a handgun when Rittenhouse shot him:
Rittenhouse fired at both of them, apparently killing the skateboarder, Anthony Huber, with a shot to the chest as they struggled for the rifle, and then shooting a third protester, Gaige Grosskreutz, causing a gaping wound in his arm. Grosskreutz, a member of a social justice group who was wearing a hat with the word “paramedic” emblazoned on it, also appeared to be armed with a handgun.
Yet the Intercept article also describes Rittenhouse as “a 17-year-old Trump supporter who opened fire on protesters” in the opening paragraph, and includes factually incorrect claims, such as the claim that Rittenhouse was a member of a militia group. The article also implies that the Kenosha Guard was a standing militia, when in fact it was essentially a glorified neighborhood watch that one Kenosha resident started with an impromptu Facebook post after the riots began.122 The article scoffs at the idea that the riots (placing “riots” in quotes) should have been concerning to Kenosha residents, and yet rioters were directly responsible for arson123, looting, massive property damage,124 destruction of small businesses (most of which did not have insurance for destruction of this magnitude125), the financial ruination of local families,126 violent assault127 and wanton endangerment of local residents.128
I have no problem with any journalist who analyzes the Rittenhouse case, accurately lays out the facts, provides links to video footage and other available evidence, but nonetheless still concludes that Rittenhouse’s actions are punishable. But reporting from CNN and NBC is fundamentally manipulative. It is meticulously crafted using technically correct but highly misleading statements that omit key details, nudging the reader towards a certain conclusion while maintaining a facade of objectivity.
Why Kyle?
One issue that often gets lost when discussing media coverage of the Rittenhouse case involves a larger question: Why are we even talking about this? Why are we talking about Kyle Rittenhouse? Why does everyone in America even know who he is?
This may seem like a ridiculous question, but consider that in 2020 at least 34 people were killed as a result of demonstrations, protests, riots, or civil unrest. Many of them were fatally shot after an altercation escalated out of control. This includes Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. Yet we also have the case of Aaron Danielson, a Trump supporter who was fatally shot by anti-fascist Michael Reinoehl.129 And then there’s Garrett Foster, a white Black Lives Matter protester who was shot and killed by Daniel Perry, a white Trump supporter.130 Then we have James Scurlock, a black BLM protester who was shot and killed by Jacob Gardner, a white bar owner, after Scurlock tackled Gardner during an altercation.131 All of these incidents received some media coverage at the time, but nothing even approaching the scale of the Rittenhouse coverage.
So why Kyle Rittenhouse? The Rittenhouse shootings comprised the only incident in 2020 that could be used to cultivate a withering media narrative that was in desperate need of nourishment. By late August of 2020, public support for Black Lives Matter had declined significantly, particularly among white and Hispanic adults,132 as the upcoming presidential election loomed large on the horizon. The destruction caused by the BLM riots across multiple cities was very difficult to ignore or downplay, yet for CNN and many other media outlets, casting any blame on BLM rioters was not politically palatable. As part of a concerted campaign of misdirection, CNN, NBC, and other news outlets began publishing articles highlighting the growing danger of white, armed militia groups that would show up to protests and instigate violence. While a significant percentage of CNN’s target demographic133 were too young to remember the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas, or the siege at Ruby Ridge, CNN could always bet that the memory of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” neo-Nazi rally would still be fresh in the collective American consciousness.
Of course, most of the white nationalists at Charlottesville were not part of any larger organized militia, and most larger organized militia groups, such as the Oath Keepers, are not white nationalists.134 Yet none of these annoying details matter to CNN - any visuals involving white men with guns wearing intimidating military gear can serve as fuel for the narrative, because the general public isn’t exactly up to speed on the latest developments among American militias.
Of course, even with the resources available to an organization like CNN, it’s difficult to sustain a narrative when the facts on the ground consistently fail to support it. Of the estimated 34 people killed in 2020 as a result of demonstrations, riots, or civil unrest, there were precisely zero protesters killed by any armed, right-wing militia members.135 So on August 25th, when Kyle Rittenhouse killed two protesters in Kenosha after a Facebook post called for “patriots willing to take up arms”,136 the opportunity to re-energize the narrative could not be squandered.
Of course, there were many problems: Rittenhouse was not actually associated with the Kenosha Guard, and the Kenosha Guard was not some kind of standing militia - it was more like a glorified neighborhood watch formed specifically in response to the riots and dissolved shortly thereafter.137 Furthermore, due to those pesky cell phones, video evidence capturing the shootings from multiple angles was widely disseminated across social media, clearly showing Rittenhouse running away from the people he ended up shooting, firing only when his pursuers were close enough to try wresting away his rifle. Nonetheless, CNN and other outlets have demonstrated that in a politically polarized environment it was easy enough to control the narrative by simply framing the shooting within a larger context of racial injustice and a rising right-wing militia movement, omitting key facts, never linking to any of the video footage, and simply hoping that most readers wouldn’t bother looking any further after getting the scoop from CNN. I mean, why would they? After all, CNN is the most trusted name in news.
Photographs of Huber/Grosskreutz shooting, frame by frame still photographs from Tayfun Coskun (WARNING: Graphic violence), Archived version
https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/aerial-footage-shows-aftermath-of-unrest-in-kenosha (Archived version)
https://abc7chicago.com/kenosha-shooting-protest-looting-fires/6402998/ (Archived version)
Twitter thread with footage documenting destruction in Kenosha (Archived version)
At 1:00, local citizens of Kenosha with fire extinguisher, criticizing rioters for burning down parts of town. (Alternate link), (Archived version)
According to the New York Times, arsonists set fire to a building while tenants were inside. All tenants managed to escape, but some of their pets died in the fire.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/business/small-business-insurance-unrest-kenosha.html
Armed rioters in Kenosha, antagonizing police (Archived version)
Protester aims gun at undercover journalist (Archived version)
Interview with Rittenhouse prior to shooting, Elijah Schaffer (Archived version)
Interview with Rittenhouse prior to shooting , Richie McGinniss (Archived version)
Video of Kyle providing medical aid to a female protester (Archived version)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html
Joseph Rosenbaum’s inmate record can be found at the Arizona Department of Corrections website. Click “Search By Name”, and click “Inactive” under current status. Search for J Rosenbaum to pull up his record (inmate 172556). Scroll down to “Commitment and Sentence Information”, where it displays a sentence date of 12/16/2002, and lists “SEXUAL CONDUCT W MINOR” as the crime.
For the criminal complaint and specific charges against Rosenbaum, see: https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/2021/03/11/joseph-rosenbaum-sex-offender/ (Archived version)
Rosenbaum is the bald white guy wearing a reddish shirt acting like a dick:
Video of Rosenbaum at gas station (Archived version)
Video of Rosenbaum acting confrontational at gas station (Archived version)
Video of Rosenbaum confronting armed civilians, who push him back (Archived version)
Different angle (lower quality), Rosenbaum confronting armed civilians at 45:50
Alternate link, Archived version
Image of “Jump Kick Man”, photograph by Tayfun Coskun
Huber hits Rittenhouse with a skateboard, Rittenhouse shoots him
Frame by frame photographs capturing Rittenhouse shooting of Anthony Huber (higher quality than the video footage, but only captures certain moments of the event), clearly showing Huber hitting Rittenhouse with the skateboard and attempting to grab Rittenhouse’s rifle. WARNING: contains graphic violence.
Grosskreutz puts hands up, pulls gun, Rittenhouse shoots him
In the video footage, it’s very difficult to see Grosskreutz’ handgun without pausing and viewing the video frame by frame. Watch the embedded video in the “Second Shooting” section of the New York Times “Visual Investigation”, which highlights Grosskreutz’ handgun in the footage.
Grosskreutz also testified during the trial that he aimed a handgun at Rittenhouse first, and then Rittenhouse fired. See:
https://apnews.com/article/kyle-rittenhouse-wisconsin-shootings-george-floyd-homicide-cbd8653c42406417c2d3d8559632e3bb
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/states-own-witnesses-laid-path-rittenhouse-acquittal-2021-11-19/
Video of Grosskreutz’ testimony, admitting he aimed his handgun at Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse fired. (Archived version)
Frame by frame of the incident, caught using still photography by Tayfun Coskun. WARNING: contains graphic violence. (Archived version)
https://web.archive.org/web/20200901041800/https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-say-trump-can-t-stop-violence-because-he-has-n1238858
See also this NBC news opinion piece, which falsely claims Rittenhouse was “patrolling the city streets with members of the radical Boogaloo Bois militia”:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200905170424/https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/kyle-rittenhouse-his-militia-defense-ignores-private-paramilitaries-are-illegal-ncna1239397
Examples:
“The images referenced 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, the white teenager who allegedly killed the men amid protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20200901192126/https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/us/arthur-love-facebook-post-kyle-rittenhouse-trnd/index.html
“On Wednesday, Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois, was arrested and faces a warrant alleging first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the shooting deaths of two people during protests over the shooting by police of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20200827021639/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teen-arrested-kenosha-shooting-promoted-blue-lives-matter-posed-firearms-n1238296
“In court records filed late Thursday, Rittenhouse’s attorneys argued that he was acting in self-defense when he fatally shot the two people protesting the police shooting of Blake, a Black man.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20201009111004/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teen-charged-kenosha-shootings-due-back-illinois-court-n1242677
According to the New York Times, rioters set fire to a building while tenants were inside. All tenants managed to escape, but some of their pets died in the fire.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/business/small-business-insurance-unrest-kenosha.html
At 1:00, local citizens of Kenosha, talking about putting out fires, criticizing rioters for burning down parts of town:
https://www.facebook.com/travelwithtroy33/videos/10160208043061258/ (Alternate link), (Archived version)
Video of Grosskreutz, briefly putting his hands up, before pointing handgun at Rittenhouse while attempted to grab Rittenhouse’s rifle.
See also Grosskreutz’ testimony explaining exactly how events played out after he put his hands up
Kenosha shooting frame by frame, from Tayfun Coscun (WARNING: Graphic violence)
From the Intercept, published on August 27th, 2020: “Grosskreutz, a member of a social justice group who was wearing a hat with the word ‘paramedic’ emblazoned on it, also appeared to be armed with a handgun.”
https://theintercept.com/2020/08/27/tucker-carlson-defends-kenosha-shooter/
See also the embedded video under the “Second Shooting” section in the New York Times article at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html
Footage of Rosenbaum shooting - Rittenhouse calls someone on his cellphone at 0:21, then says “I just killed somebody” at around 0:34. It’s very difficult to hear over the background noise, but it is mentioned on page 3 of the criminal complaint against Kyle Rittenhouse.
Armed rioters in Kenosha, antagonizing police
Protester points gun at undercover reporter
For the criminal complaint and specific charges against Rosenbaum, see: https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/2021/03/11/joseph-rosenbaum-sex-offender/
Rosenbaum is the bald white guy wearing a reddish shirt and acting like a dick:
Rosenbaum acting erratic shortly before shooting, at gas station (Archived version)
Rosenbaum acting erratic, armed civilians try to restrain him, Drew Hernandez footage
Rosenbaum acting erratic shortly before shooting, Julio Rosas footage
Joseph Rosenbaum’s inmate record can be found at the Arizona Department of Corrections website. Click “Search By Name”, and click “Inactive” under current status. Search for J Rosenbaum to pull up his record (inmate 172556). Scroll down to “Commitment and Sentence Information”, where it displays a sentence date of 12/16/2002, and lists “SEXUAL CONDUCT W MINOR” as the crime.
https://kenoshareporter.com/stories/549456479-fatally-shot-attacker-joseph-rosenbaum-was-a-registered-sex-offender (Archived version)
Note that this article incorrectly claims that Rosenbaum threw a Molotov cocktail at Rittenhouse. This is not true; Rosenbaum threw a plastic bag.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kyle-rittenhouse-won-t-face-charges-illinois-related-kenosha-protest-n1243375
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/us/rittenhouse-trial-semiautomatic-rifle.html
Testimony of Dominick Black, Rittenhouse’s friend, explaining how the gun was purchased and stored in Wisconsin. (Archived version)
According to the New York Times, rioters set fire to a building while tenants were inside. All tenants managed to escape, but some of their pets died in the fire.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html
See also:
Video of store owner putting out fire assaulted by rioter
Elderly man attacked while protecting Kenosha mattress store, FOX6 coverage
Armed rioters in Kenosha, antagonizing police
Protester points gun at undercover reporter
According to the New York Times, rioters set fire to a building while tenants were inside. All tenants managed to escape, but some of their pets died in the fire.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html
“With blue gloved hands in the air and the gun around his chest, the brigade member who was thanked at the start of the night was given safe passage past police. He was not stopped and cuffed, but was allowed to exit with only this warning: ‘You with the long gun – don’t come down here. This is closed.’ ”
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/08/26/kenosha-shooting-video-shows-suspected-gunman-kyle-rittenhouse-being-allowed-to-leave-scene/
“As for Rittenhouse showing up with his hands in the air, appearing to turn himself in, the sheriff said officers did not realize what he was trying to do.”
“[Rittenhouse] had tried to surrender to a Kenosha police officer after the shooting but was told to go home, according to the records. The Kenosha Police Department has said it was dealing with a chaotic scene when asked why Rittenhouse was not arrested immediately after the shooting.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kenosha-protesters-killed-teen-kyle-rittenhouse-police-report/
“As for how the gunman managed to slip away, Sheriff David Beth described a chaotic, high-stress scene, with lots of radio traffic and people screaming, chanting and running — conditions he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.”
https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-racial-injustice-il-state-wire-shootings-wi-state-wire-97a0700564fb52d7f664d8de22066f88
“With blue gloved hands in the air and the gun around his chest, the brigade member who was thanked at the start of the night was given safe passage past police. He was not stopped and cuffed, but was allowed to exit with only this warning: ‘You with the long gun – don’t come down here. This is closed.’ ”
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/08/26/kenosha-shooting-video-shows-suspected-gunman-kyle-rittenhouse-being-allowed-to-leave-scene/
Footage of Huber/Grosskreutz shooting from Brenden Gutenschwager (Archived version)
Photographs of Huber/Grosskreutz shooting, frame by frame still photographs from Tayfun Coskun (WARNING: Graphic violence), Archived version
New York Times “Visual Investigations” (see embedded video in the “Second Shooting” section)
Video of Grosskreutz’ testimony, admitting he aimed handgun at Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse fired.
Still photography of Tayfun Coskun, capturing events in Kenosha (WARNING: Graphic Violence), Archived Version
Rosenbaum shooting, Drew Hernandez footage (Archived version)
According to the New York Times, rioters set fire to a building while tenants were inside. All tenants managed to escape, but some of their pets died in the fire.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/business/small-business-insurance-unrest-kenosha.html