The Sift: Mob reality | Antifa falsely accused | Riot or coup?

Mob reality

When the mob of extremists, conspiracists and zealous supporters of President Donald Trump violently raided the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, many of its members behaved in person how they have generally acted online. They propagated disinformation, spewed hate, stoked violence, disregarded the law and overwhelmed authorities vastly outnumbered and ill-equipped to handle the onslaught. The consequences were deadly.

The crush of militia members, White nationalists, QAnon believers, “boomerwaffen” and ordinary Americans represented an alternative information ecosystem come dangerously to life — a physical demonstration of the “vanishing line between mainstream and fringe” political beliefs. The insurrection was a product of a circular and self-sustaining echo chamber of false political claims, propaganda from openly partisan media, conspiracy theories and disinformation that has been escalating — largely unchecked — for years.

Here are three points of focus for educators seeking to guide students through the news literacy implications of this shocking event.

• The collapse of the physical and virtual. The crowds who came to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5 and 6 to “save America” were misinformed, radicalized and organized online. According to Zignal Labs, a media intelligence company, “the term ‘Storm the Capitol’ was mentioned [online] 100,000 times in the 30 days preceding Jan. 6,” The New York Times reported. Once the “storm” arrived at the Capitol, however, the rioters never ceased being online. They chanted hashtags, livestreamed their invasion on sites like Dlive (where other users not only paid them but also used the chat to help them evade police) and they performed and posed for social media.
  • Discuss: What do you think the online causes of the Capitol attack were? What effect will the real-life violence have online? How could images and footage of the failed insurrection be used in the future?
  • Related: “Police let most Capitol rioters walk away. But cellphone data and videos could now lead to more arrests.” (Craig Timberg, Drew Harwell and Spencer S. Hsu, The Washington Post).
     
• Threats, violence and police actions against the press. The mob harassed, threatened and assaulted journalists covering the event. They proclaimed “we’re the news now,” destroyed TV equipment and scrawled “murder the media” — which is also the name of a group of alt-right podcasters and YouTubers — on a door of the Capitol. Several journalists were also detained by police.
  • Related:
    • “Journalists were attacked, threatened and detained during the Capitol siege” (Brittany Shammas, The Washington Post).
    • “‘Three people threatened to shoot me.’ Journalists describe covering mob violence at the US Capitol” (Katherine Jacobsen and Lucy Westcott, Committee to Protect Journalists).
  • Idea: Use one or more of the ideas in this Twitter thread by Peter Adams, NLP’s head of education, to address the press freedom implications of the Capitol siege with students.
     
• Deplatforming measures. In the wake of the riot, social media platforms scrambled to retroactively enforce their own terms of service by flagging and deleting specific types of content and limiting or banning the accounts of users spreading dangerous disinformation about the election and attack on the Capitol. The morning after the failed insurrection, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the platform was banning Trump from both Facebook and Instagram indefinitely. On Jan. 8, Twitter announced that it was permanently suspending Trump’s account, which had more than 88 million followers. Parler, an alternative social media platform with lax community standards favored by people on the far right, was delisted from both the Apple and Google app stores over the weekend. It also had its cloud hosting revoked by Amazon on Jan. 10, knocking it offline until — and if — it can find a new hosting service.
  • Related:
    • “How Parler, a Chosen App of Trump Fans, Became a Test of Free Speech” (Jack Nicas and Davey Alba, The New York Times).
    • “Trump Is Banned. Who Is Next?” (Evelyn Douek, The Atlantic). 
  • Idea: Use this summary of platform actions following the Capitol siege — compiled by First Draft, a disinformation research organization — to discuss the topic of deplatforming with students. Do they agree with these actions? Why or why not? What steps would they have taken if they were in charge of these companies?

Viral rumor rundown

NO: The facial recognition company XRVision did not identify supporters of the antifa movement among the mob who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6. YES: The openly conservative Washington Times published a report falsely claiming that XRVision had “matched two Philadelphia antifa members to two men inside the Senate.” NO: This is not true. YES: The Times removed the story from its website on Jan. 7 and replaced it with a new version with a correction. YES: Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz cited the incorrect report in remarks he made on the House floor after the Capitol was secured and repeated the false claim that some of the rioters were “members of the violent terrorist group Antifa.”

Note: Antifa is an unofficial anti-fascism movement and not an established organization.

Related:

• “Trump loyalists push evidence-free claims that antifa activists fueled mob” (Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins, NBC News).
• “There’s no proof antifa stormed the Capitol. The rumor spread quickly anyway” (Daniel Funke and Bill McCarthy, PolitiFact).

NO: Capitol Police officers did not simply let this pro-Trump mob through the barricades surrounding the Capitol building on Jan. 6. YES: Marcus DiPaola, the freelance journalist who shot this video and posted it to TikTok as part of his coverage of the Capitol riots, told PolitiFact that the police “definitely didn’t just open the barriers.” YES: A number of other videos show vastly outnumbered Capitol Police fighting to protect the Capitol, including at an initial barrier on the perimeter of the Capitol grounds. YES: Some video clips also seem to show police not resisting the rioters, and at least one police officer appeared to allow a rioter to take a selfie with him.

Related:

• “A Tale of Two Protests: Police treatment differed in Black Lives Matter vs. Capitol riots” (Nathan Baca, WUSA9).
• “Rioters breached US Capitol security on Wednesday. This was the police response when it was Black protesters on DC streets last year” (Nicole Chavez, CNN).
• “Former Capitol police chief shares thoughts on why officers appeared to let rioters in” (Minyvonne Burke, NBC News).

NO: This photo does not show Senate aides protecting Electoral College votes as the Senate chamber was evacuated on Jan. 6. YES: It shows aides carrying the ballot boxes from the Senate to the House chamber to be certified about an hour before rioters breached the Capitol building. YES: Parliamentary floor staff were credited with saving the ballot boxes from the mob.

NO: This video is not footage of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building. YES: It is footage of disability rights activists protesting proposed Medicaid cuts in a Republican health care bill at the Capitol in June 2017.

NO: This photo does not show crowds of Trump supporters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021, the day before the Capitol riot. YES: It shows people participating in the “March for Our Lives” protest in 2018.

Note: Using photos of large crowds in false contexts is a common disinformation tactic used to exaggerate the level of support for a cause.

Also note: This same photo was used out of context to exaggerate attendance at the second “MAGA March” in December 2020 and was the subject of our featured rumor resource in the Dec. 14 issue of The Sift.

On Jan. 3, The Washington Post broke the news about a recorded telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which the president pressed Raffensperger to “‘find’ enough votes to overturn his defeat” to President-elect Joe Biden. Other news reports on the leaked recording soon followed, with news organizations such as CNN crediting the Post as being the first to break the story.

The Post’s initial reporting — labeled “exclusive” — is, by any standard, a major story, and has even been called “the scoop of the year.” In journalism, a “scoop” refers to an important news story first reported by a particular news organization or reporter(s). (Journalists call this “breaking” the story.) This week, we’re going to explore how journalists balance the desire to be first on a competitive, quickly developing story with the need for accuracy. Let’s examine the original Post report and analyze how other news organizations chased and verified this scoop. Grab your news goggles. Let’s go!

★ Featured News Goggles resource: These classroom-ready slides offer annotations, discussion questions and a teaching idea related to this week’s topic.

Note: Information “leaked” to the press has historically played an important role in watchdog journalism to hold the powerful accountable. The New York Times recently published journalist Neil Sheehan’s account of how he obtained the leaked Pentagon Papers, a “blockbuster scoop” on America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Sheehan, who died Jan. 7, asked that the story remain unpublished while he was alive.

Related: “Trump’s phone call to Georgia was illegal, immoral or unconstitutional. Here’s how some journalists decide what to call it.” (Kelly McBride, Poynter).

Discuss: How should journalists balance speed and accuracy in reporting? Why is information sometimes “leaked” or shared with journalists? Can journalists trust the information that is leaked to them? What are some ways to fact-check or verify raw information, such as a phone recording? Why might standards-based news organizations pursue certain “scoops” over others? How is the Post’s report an example of watchdog journalism?

Idea: Ask students to put themselves in reporters’ shoes and imagine that someone had sent them a copy of the phone recording. What should they do next? Should they immediately report on the recording and release it, or should they take other steps to verify this piece of raw information? Who could they contact to make sure it is authentic? How should they determine if the source of the recording is credible? Finally, how should they decide which excerpts of the hour-long call are most important to feature in a news report to be fair and accurate?

Resources: “Practicing Quality Journalism,” “Democracy’s Watchdog,” “What is News?” and “InfoZones” (NLP’s Checkology® virtual classroom).

★ Sift Picks

Featured

“How to describe the events at the U.S. Capitol” (John Daniszewski, AP Style Blog).

As journalists raced to document the historic and violent events unfolding at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, newsrooms across the country debated how to describe these events in news coverage. Stories filed by reporters included words like protest, riot, insurrection, mob and coup. In this piece, The AP Stylebook — which offers editing rules and language guidance followed by many news organizations— weighed in with a series of recommendations, including advising journalists to avoid the term “coup,” unless attributed to others, because “so far AP has not seen conclusive evidence that the protesters’ specific aim was to take over the government.” For newsrooms grappling with these decisions on deadline, this broader advice stands out: “As always, journalists should look at the events with an open and dispassionate mind and decide what language best applies.”

Related:

• “There’s an ongoing battle of words to describe Jan 6, 2021. Here’s why it matters” (Christopher Booker, PBS NewsHour).
• “From historic day to ‘insurrection,’ how the mob takeover of the Capitol unfolded in news coverage” (Jeremy Barr and Paul Farhi, The Washington Post).
• “Is America experiencing a coup?” (Nicolás Rivero, Quartz).

Note: Journalists at the Toledo Blade say management “manipulated wording in headlines, stories, and photo captions to alter the reality of what occurred” on Jan. 6, including avoiding describing rioters as Trump supporters in headlines. The Blade’s news guild announced a temporary byline strike, removing journalists’ names from stories.

Idea: Have students compare and contrast newspaper coverage from a selection of Jan. 7 front pages. Ask students to pick two to three publications and focus on word choice in headlines, photo captions and opening paragraphs. How does the news coverage describe the people involved in the Jan. 6 events (rioters, protesters, Trump supporters, extremists, insurrectionists, etc.)? How do reporters describe the events (riot, coup, insurrection, siege, protest, etc.)? What details do some reports include, but not others? Which word choices do students think are most appropriate? Why? If the class had to write a headline for this story, what would it be?

Another Idea: Read this piece from WUSA-TV, a CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., which explains what “insurrection” means. Then, in light of this definition, discuss whether students agree with The AP Stylebook’s stance on the term, which argues that using the term to describe the events of Jan. 6 could “be justified” in news coverage. 

Quick Picks

“This Pro-Trump YouTube Network Sprang Up Just After He Lost” (Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News).

• Note: The Epoch Times is an openly partisan, far-right media outlet that mimics the appearance of a legitimate, standards-based news organization but has repeatedly lent credence to baseless conspiracy theories. It regularly publishes highly misleading political coverage and is connected to the dissident Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong.
• Discuss What does it mean for a news organization to be “transparent” and “independent”? How can presenting groundless conspiracy theories as valid subjects of inquiry be dangerous? What standards of quality journalism does the Epoch Times’ YouTube channel scheme violate? Why do you think these YouTube channels were able to grow such a large audience, despite lacking credibility? If a large portion of the population believes “‘they are viewing news when they are really seeing dark propaganda,’” what problems could arise? Does YouTube have a responsibility to make sure people understand the nature of the videos they are watching?

“How to reduce the spread of fake news — by doing nothing” (Tom Buchanan, NiemanLab).

• Discuss: Does responding to or commenting on misinformation online make the problem of misinformation better or worse? Why? What can social media companies do to fix the problem of algorithms amplifying misinformation (e.g., interpreting all reactions, even those correcting or condemning a post, as signs it should be recommended to others)? How can fact-checkers and others interested in correcting the record do so without repeating and reinforcing falsehoods?
• Idea: Ask students to reflect on their social media behaviors related to news of the U.S. Capitol events. Did they share or interact with any content on the subject? Did any of that content turn out to be false or misleading? Based on the advice in this piece, what could students have done differently, if anything? Do they agree with Buchanan’s approach to slowing the spread of misinformation?

“How a Florida reporter became a one-woman help desk for anxious seniors navigating the COVID-19 vaccine” (Kristen Hare, Poynter).

• Discuss: Why would people turn to journalists like CD Davidson-Hiers for information on the COVID-19 vaccine? Should journalists routinely become directly involved with supporting the public in this way? Would such interactions impact public perceptions of the media?

What else did we find this week? Here's our list.

Thanks for reading!

Your weekly issue of The Sift is created by Peter Adams (@PeterD_Adams), Suzannah Gonzales and Hannah Covington (@HannahCov) of the News Literacy Project. It is edited by NLP’s Mary Kane (@marykkane).

You’ll find teachable moments from our previous issues in the archives. Send your suggestions and success stories to [email protected].

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