Media alters video, makes young boy's innocent comments appear violent, dangerous

Saturday, August 06, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: old media, bad journalism, health news

(NaturalNews) The mainstream media's penchant for perjury has reached a new low, when local CBS affiliate in Chicago WBBM blatantly altered an interview with a young boy to make it look like he was prone to violence. After a serious shooting in his neighborhood, a four-year-old boy told reporters that he wanted to be a police officer when he was older, and have a gun in order to prevent such violence -- but WBBM edited the video to make it appear that the boy simply wanted to have a gun.

Two young people, a 16-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy, were recently shot in a South Side Chicago neighborhood, and WBBM reported on the story. Upon explaining the details of the situation, a WBBM reporter mentions that "kids on the street as young as four were there to see it unfold," adding that they had a "disturbing reaction."

The reaction, at least as it was aired by WBBM, shows a young, four-year-old African American boy as a reporter asks him the question, "When you get older, you gonna stay away from all these guns?" The boy's answer is "No," upon which he is interrupted by the reporter with "No?!" The boy answers back "No," and the reporter then asks the boy what he wants to do when he gets older. The boy's response, as captured in the WBBM clip, is, "I'm gonna have me a gun."

The clip ends there, leaving viewers with the impression that the boy intends to be a "gangster" just like those that shot his neighbors. But in truth, the boy actually went on to explain that he plans to be a police officer when he grows up, which explains why he wants a gun -- to help keep his neighborhood safe.

You can watch the corrupted clip captures as part of the WBBM interview, followed by a full clip with everything the young boy said, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu_LK_iEFE8

Writing on the deceptive WBBM news segment, The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, which allegedly was the first to report on it, says it tried to contact various station employees, but to no avail. It did, however, receive a statement from Shawnelle Richie, the station's director of communications, who admitted that "a mistake was made." However she did not admit that the boy's comments were deliberately taken out of context.

Sources for this story include:

http://mije.org/health/tv-station-takes-four...