Sure, they might be doing bad stuff, but covering their actions is unacceptable!

In case you may have missed it, we are going on Day-52 of a violent Antifa-fueled uprising taking place in Portland, Oregon. While this is obvious to most, I offer up this newsflash to anyone who may be a CNN viewer. Clearly this months-old information has slipped past the sharp eyes of Brian Stelter, as he seemingly has just learned of these skirmishes over the weekend while watching FoxNews.

As much of the city of Portland has been overrun, buildings damaged and looting taking place, the Mayor has infamously been as passive with these rioters as a Corgi rolling onto its back. Entire city blocks have been vandalized and painted over, but Stelter has found something to be really upset about — FoxNews is reporting on what is happening.

When I saw Sean Hannity leading his show with "MORE VIOLENCE GRIPS PORTLAND" and scary video from the streets, I knew something was up… https://t.co/K9Wb2HF29r

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 20, 2020

It would be absolutely amazing were this attempt at pure gaslighting delivered by anyone else but the Fox-obsessed media hall monitor Stelter. As he was being called out for his act of turning his back on the story in order to shame Fox he exposed just how desperate his effort here has become.

False. As I said on CNN, there are "real problems in Portland." I criticized the anarchists. But the right wing coverage is a "gross exaggeration." https://t.co/ZVMBWPxARv

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 20, 2020

So, while he was willing to “criticize” the violence and anarchy, leading to a police building being set on fire, Stelter holds far more contempt for anyone who reports on such. How on earth can he find a problem with using the phrase, ‘’More violence grips Portland’’ when it is an entirely accurate portrayal of what if playing out in that city?

This shoot-the-messenger effort however is remarkable in a pair of ways: in the sheer scope of delusion attempted and the proximity of media coverage of prior protests. What has taken place so far in Portland is broad, and it is shameful. It is hard to see how it is possible for Fox to be hyperbolic while most of the mainstream press is desperate to ignore or downplay the violence. But the revealing aspect here is in Stelter’s words. He is upset at Fox for supposedly using ‘’gross exaggeration’’, so why don’t we take a look at the media coverage from a different uprising.

When people in Michigan began to be fed up with the restrictions imposed on them by Governor Whitmer they held protests in the state capital. One day, they packed into the capitol building, some wearing their legal-to-carry firearms. The media was almost uniform in describing the scene as mobs who “stormed” the building. The Today Show, MSNBC, Yahoo News,  Newsweek, Mother Jones, Esquire, as well as CNN, are just some of the press outlets to run with this narrative.

Small detail. There was no violence, no crime, no property damage to report on. The protestors gathered in the rotunda and chanted — some even shouted! And the amazing thing is we have seen more condemnation and criticisms leveled at these gatherings in April and May than the same press is willing to express towards the severe violence on display in Seattle and Portland.

Note that there was harsher language used towards people who legally had open-carry guns with them in Michigan than we have heard about the illegal distribution of firearms we witnessed inside Seattle’s CHOP Zone. 6 shootings took place inside CHOP, leading to 2 fatalities of POC individuals. Try to find where criticism was directed in that storyline that approached the descriptions we saw coming out of the peaceful Michigan protests.

No crimes committed, but blanket descriptions of people “storming” government buildings — THAT is the “exaggeration” seen in the press, Mr. Stelter. Once the coverage of those protests is balanced against the meek reporting on the months of violence seen in Portland, to use your own terminology, the exaggeration becomes even more gross in scale.