'Thank God we have video'
Imagine, for a moment, that there was no video of Alex Pretti’s death. No video showing him holding a cell phone, not a gun, in his hand. No video of Pretti reacting when a federal agent pushed a woman to the ground. No video of his gun, which he had a permit to carry, being taken away before the fatal shooting.
What if the only accounts came from Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, depicting Pretti as a “domestic terrorist,” imagining he wanted to “massacre” officers? Maybe there would be eyewitnesses saying something else, but those voices would be drowned out by the government’s declarations. People might shrug and say it’s impossible to know what really happened.
But as a matter of fact, there are many videos of Pretti’s death. Many angles. And the videos contradict some of the Trump admin’s most incendiary claims.
Noem’s initial statement “seems very much now at odds with the videos,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said from the scene of the shooting this morning.
Cooper pointed out that “we have not yet seen a video from the camera that Alex Pretti was carrying, that we see him holding up.”
The eyewitness video is already playing a key role in holding the Trump admin accountable. This morning on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Dana Bash grilled Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, asking him directly why Pretti was shot after being disarmed. “We’re not going to adjudicate that here on TV in one freeze frame,” Bovino replied. “It’s not a freeze frame,” Bash said. “We’re showing a video of one of your agents taking the gun away. And that happened before Pretti was shot.” Bovino sidestepped many of Bash’s questions. When he claimed that Pretti was “actively impeding and assaulting” law enforcement, Bash interjected, “He wasn’t impeding it. He was filming it, which is a legal thing to do in the United States.” The video clips of Pretti with his phone reminded me of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s recommendation to Minnesotans earlier this month: “If you see ICE in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record.” Yesterday, as Trump officials blamed Pretti for his own death, Walz reacted, “Thank God, thank God we have video.” |
Recording as a form of resistance |
Over on NBC this morning, there was another revealing moment during Kristen Welker’s interview with Deputy AG Todd Blanche. “Part of the outrage that people are expressing is that they feel as though the federal government is asking them to believe something that they don’t see with their own two eyes,” Welker said… “to believe that [Pretti] was violent, when the video, based on what everyone has seen so far, does not show that.” Blanche replied, “You shouldn’t try to gaslight the administration about what happened. That was not a peaceful protest.” Other Trump officials are claiming it was a “riot,” but again, viewers can see that it wasn’t. I wrote about recording as a form of resistance for CNN.com overnight… |
Of course, the abundance of video is just a starting point, not an end point. We all know that people can watch the same scene and reach very different conclusions. (Especially when political leaders have primed them to do so.) Still, it’s “really important to get analysis of events” like the Pretti shooting “out to the public quickly, especially when it’s clear the US government, ICE, and DHS are willing to immediately start lying about what’s happening,” Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins told me yesterday. His team immediately synced up three of the shooting videos and streamed them side by side. Major news outlets with visual investigations teams have published forensic analysis pieces based on the videos. (Here is CNN’s version.) I’m struck by the fact that countless individual Instagrammers and TikTokers have done the same, just based on their own observations. This is like a whole parallel ecosystem, featuring on-the-ground content from Minnesota, personal accounts of “occupation,” and a whole lot of provocative political rhetoric. |
>> Pretti’s family “first learned of the shooting when they were called by an Associated Press reporter,” according to The AP. “They watched the video and said the man killed appeared to be their son. They then tried reaching out to officials in Minnesota.” They said the feds didn’t reach out. Last night they issued a statement saying “the sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.” >> The Bulwark’s Sam Stein was struck by the speed of the federal push to frame Pretti as dangerous: “Within a few minutes the image of the gun was sent out, pushed to preferred outlets, top officials rushed to platforms citing the same lines,” he wrote. “The official government twitter accounts revved up. They’ve had practice at this.” >> Yes, but… Some prominent MAGA media writers and commentators are expressing skepticism about the government’s claims. >> Sofia B. Kinzinger, who worked as a comms staffer for the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first term, and is married to Trump antagonist Adam Kinzinger, wrote on X, “This couldn’t be worse timing for the White House and DHS communications teams: 140 million people under winter storm warnings, stuck at home, consuming news and social media nonstop.” |
Trump ‘frustrated’ by the optics |
Flashback to this Friday headline from CNN’s Alayna Treene, Priscilla Alvarez, and Kristen Holmes: “Trump privately frustrated that he risks losing control of immigration message amid Minnesota chaos.” They also reported that some Trump officials are concerned about the “optics of the immigration crackdown.” In other words, the videos. >> Conservative podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey wrote yesterday that “Dems are winning the media war in Minneapolis. Republicans have played decent defense, but we need more stories and images showing the professionalism and compassion of ICE and border patrol, as well as stories/images of the victims of illegal alien violence.” |
I’ll leave you with this question |
What is the impact of seeing a man like Alex Pretti and a woman like Renee Nicole Good die violently over and over again, on camera, in our feeds? |
Covering the cold, safely |
Here on the farm in NJ, we have four inches of snow so far, and my kids are hoping for another 14 inches. I’m just hoping the power stays on! Hopefully you’re staying warm wherever you are. CNN has an excellent page of live storm updates here. The bone-chilling cold — most of the US will experience subzero wind chills over the next week — is an added challenge for news crews that are outside covering the storm. Networks and stations are prioritizing safety and efficiency while scheduling live shots from the field… |
Weather apps are no match for real live humans |
The complicated forecast — snow, sleet, freezing rain, frigid cold — across a wide swath of the country also highlights the importance of human meteorologists and the limitations of weather apps. The AP’s Seth Borenstein and Tammy Webber have a great story about that here. The apps “are really bad at storms that have multiple types of precipitation and it really makes messaging hard,” said Marshall Shepherd, past president of the American Meteorological Society. The apps provide data, “but not explanation,” said one of the local forecasters I rely on, Steven DiMartino of NY NJ PA Weather. Read on… |
Live by the meme, die by the meme? “Homeland Security officials have urged disaster response staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to avoid using the word ‘ice’ in public messaging about the massive winter storm,” CNN’s Gabe Cohen reported Friday, citing sources familiar with the directive. “The concern is that the word could spark confusion or online mockery,” given all the current controversy about ICE, the agency… |
Mission accomplished for Alex Honnold — and Netflix |
He did it! On Sunday morning in Taipei, Alex Honnold completed his Taipei 101 skyscraper climb without ropes or a safety net. It was, as CNN’s Jessie Yeung wrote, “an eye-boggling spectacle live-streamed by Netflix.” The special, titled “Skyscraper Live,” was billed as Netflix’s first international live event, and it went off without a hitch, so far as I could tell… |
🏈 NFL media notes and quotes |
Happy NFL conference championship day. The Patriots play the Broncos at 3 p.m. ET on CBS, and the Rams play the Seahawks at 6:30 p.m. on Fox. >> A great read from The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand: “Tom Brady knew he needed to improve on TV. So he channeled his ‘quarterback’ days.” >> Trump told the NY Post on Friday that he’s not going to the Super Bowl this year because “it’s just too far away.” The game is being played in Santa Clara, CA. >> Trump also slammed the halftime performers Bad Bunny and Green Day, saying, “I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.” |
I’ve been devouring a copy of “Everybody Loses,” Danny Funt’s new book about the perils of sports gambling in the US. Funt says his overall impression, after interviewing more than 300 people, “is that sportsbooks are brazenly taking advantage of customers, and, in some cases, outright endangering them.” And he has ample evidence of this in the book. Funt also devotes a chapter to the embrace of gambling by some segments of the American media. He quotes a former ESPN reporter saying, “Sports media is kind of getting bribed.” If you’re interested in this topic, I think you’ll devour it too… |
>> Brian Phillips skewers “the five farcical principles of the ‘CBS Evening News.’” (The Ringer) >> Matthew Hennessey argues “there is no good reason” for news outlets to let Bari Weiss critics rip her anonymously. (WSJ) >> Craig Aaron argues that Nexstar “has passed Trump’s loyalty test and is ready to cash in.” (Pressing Issues) >> Christine Wang writes about “the challenges facing the Ellisons’ media empire.” (Axios) >> Jim VandeHei pens a note to his wife and kids to share “what I’m hearing, seeing, thinking and writing about AI.” He says “the changes will be fast, wide, radical, disorienting and scary.” (Axios) >> Allison Johnson argues that “Instagram’s top boss is missing the point about AI on the platform.” (The Verge) >> David Gilbert says “advances in artificial intelligence are creating a perfect storm for those seeking to spread disinformation at unprecedented speed and scale” and “it’s virtually impossible to detect.” (WIRED) >> On Page One of yesterday’s NYT, Michael Thomsen explores “the secretive VIP programs that keep gamers spending” on games like FarmVille and Words With Friends. (NYT) |
Scrutinizing the TikTok deal |
The deal securing TikTok’s future in the US puts Trump’s allies “in charge of yet another driver of American culture,” Politico’s team wrote Friday. “For Trump’s critics, that means years of worries about TikTok acting as a vector for Beijing’s propaganda are giving way to fears that its algorithm could soon serve up a flood of far-right, pro-MAGA content to impressionable users.” Reps for TikTok and the White House did not respond to Politico’s questions about that possibility. >> 🔌 On CNN, I likened this moment to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter… |
The truth about a student’s arrest… |
It really was about her op-ed. Government documents show no evidence that Tufts postdoctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk “engaged in any antisemitic activity” or made “any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally,” the NYT’s Zach Montague reported yesterday. Instead, it appears the Trump administration detained Öztürk and revoked her visa simply because of “an opinion piece she had written in The Tufts Daily, a student newspaper, calling for divestment from Israel.” Montague has more here… |
WSJ laments FCC’s latest action |
“President Trump’s desire to control the public airwaves is verging on the comic, literally,” the WSJ editorial board says. “Witness the FCC’s memo this week targeting late-night comedy—yes, the same shows that Mr. Trump claims are irrelevant.” The board says Brendan Carr’s FCC missive “is a regrettable diversion from the yeoman work Mr. Carr is doing rolling back Biden-era regulation. Then again, maybe the goal is to make Mr. Trump’s Presidency the highest-rated comedy on TV.” |