Brian Stelter Traces The Way Controversies Are Pushed From The Right Wing Fever Swamps To Trump's Twitter Feed
CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter with a pretty good breakdown on how so many stories that end up enraging Trump supporters and viewers of Fox "news" originate in the right wing fever swamps of the Internet and eventually work their way onto larger media outlets, such as the ones we saw attacking Rep. Ihlan Omar this week.
STELTER: First let's talk about something that has been in the headlines for days now. Let's talk about where controversies come from. You've probably heard a lot about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar this week. But do you know why? Do you know how it started?
Controversies don't just erupt naturally like a bolt of lightning sparking a fire. No. Controversies are created, like an arsonist lighting a match. But too often our news coverage and the papers, on T.V. and on line starts mid story. We say something like there is a controversy brewing between among these two people, but we leave out the most important part, the lighting of the match.
So let's look at how the Omar 9/11 story started and how it is being framed. Omar gave a speech to the Council on American-Islamic Relations last month. Her focus was on the importance of protecting civil liberties. The speech didn't really picked up at the time.