On January 18, 2019, a video of students from Covington Catholic High School went viral. It went viral because it showed these students at the
March for Life anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C. supposedly mocking a Native American man. After this one small portion of the full video surfaced many journalist/news outlets jumped right into conclusion that what they saw was accurate and they started accusing these students of mocking Mr. Phillips the Native American. Not only did this video effect the whole group, but it also effected one specific student named Nick Sandmann. Sandmann was the face of this scandal because the video that went viral portrayed Sandmann as being the one who stood in front of Mr. Phillips. This also effected the news outlets who reacted too fast to this incident costing them their ethical standards they hold with the public. If you would like to know how this Covington incident evolved in the news outlets and what we as society have learned from this, then please keep on reading.
Here is the video that went viral:
After this video went viral many news outlets reacted too fast to this incident without having the full story yet. Here are a couple of those news outlets:
NBC
NBC was one of many to jump right into conclusion that these students did in fact mock Mr. Phillips. If you click the link above it takes you to this video where Mr. Phillips shares his side of the story. Also, the headline and caption of this video seems to lean more in favor towards defending Mr. Phillips.
WCPO
In the video below, its a newscast from a local news outlet in Cincinnati, Ohio. The reporters here claim to have covered all sides of the story and for the most part they did, but in this specific report Nick Sandmann is put in the spotlight. Many news outlets put this student in the spot light causing him to receive threats and negative comments.
After more videos of this incident surfaced many news outlets and journalist began apologizing for reacting too fast before having the full story.
Watch USA Today’s moment by moment recall on this incident: What actually happened
Here is an exclusive interview Nick Sandmann did with Today:
Checkout Nick Sandmann’s statement:
Even though Nick Sandmann was the face of this controversy his fellow classmates also suffered from this incident. Here is a video where two students from Covington High School speak out:
Tweets that were written before the full story was known:
More tweets after the full story comes out:
What do we have to learn about this?
What we see on the internet may not always be the full truth. Its important to see where certain information is coming from. For example, is the source reliable? Are they known? Also, I think news outlets have learned not to react too quickly to stories that are still developing or that seem to be missing sides.
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