Guy Benson Torches Media Smears After Racist Shooting in Jacksonville

Today on the Guy Benson Show, Guy Benson went in on the AP and mainstream media’s covering and framing of the Jacksonville shooting. Instead of reporting on the event as the tragedy it is, Benson says that the framing of blaming the shooting on Governor DeSantis and conservatives is “vile and disgusting” activism masquerading as journalism. In doing so, journalists are no longer reporting on the news, but are instead engaging in activism and blatantly spinning stories to backup a left-leaning perspective.

Listen to the full breakdown below:

Benson had this to say on the media’s motivation for the framing of the Jacksonville shooter’s motivations:

“Is it useful to attack conservatives? If so, do so with reckless abandon, regardless of facts. If not, then immediately go to the most available narrative, likely gun control. That is how they operate. It is not journalism. It is not fair. It is not worthy of trust. Or prestige or any of that. It is worthy of scorn and contempt. It is activism, in-your-face partizan, ideological identity fueled, unbelievably divisive activism masquerading as journalism.”

Full Transcript:

Guy Benson: I want to open on a topic that probably bothers me more than any other single pet peeve that I have in our national discourse around politics and ideology and identity. And I know that’s a pretty significant thing to say. I’m going to try to maintain my composure talking about this because it really angers me. And I trace it back probably to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. Remember the Democratic congresswoman who was shot by a psycho in the parking lot of a grocery store out in Arizona years ago? It’s during the Obama administration. And immediately because she was a Democrat. A blame game began instantaneously. And much of the media decided it was Republicans and conservatives and the Tea Party movement. That deserved the blame, that were culpable, that were complicit. And they dug up some map that Sarah Palin’s group had put out targeting certain Democrats for electoral defeat, something that is used as a common term in our politics and had been forever. But because Gabby Giffords is one of the targeted Sarah Palin races. You had people just straight up blaming Sarah Palin for what this schizophrenic mentally ill gunman did. And it was just a narrative that took root immediately. It didn’t matter what the facts were. As it turns out. The perpetrator had no political motive at all. Didn’t follow politics. That was just a made up thing. He was personally obsessed with her, had nothing to do with ideology or partizanship at all. But that did not start the so-called purveyors of truth and information in our news media from just taking that ball and sprinting with it because it it’s what made them feel good. It’s what they wanted to be the case. As sick as that is. And even years later, the New York Times was repeating the slander because it was just taken as gospel. On the left. Even after long after it had been debunked. On the other hand, when there are figures who might be loosely or directly tied to the hard left or the far left in this country who do terrible, deadly, evil things. We don’t get the same news media whipped up into a frenzy talking about blood on the hands of politicians or commentators because of their rhetoric. When someone tried to shoot up a conservative organization, the Family Research Council. That story just went away real fast. Same with the congressional baseball shooting. Same with the Nashville school shooting the Christian school with a trans perpetrator. They moved lickety split onto the next big story. Within that story, the true victims, really, if you think about it, how they framed, it was the Democrats who broke the rules in the state legislature getting temporarily expelled. They in the trans community were the real victims. That is how the left and much of the media portrayed that whole horrible episode with, what was it, half a dozen Christians dead, including children. They moved right on. The administration sent Kamala Harris down there not to meet with the families of the dead, but to meet with the Democrats in the state legislature. And members of the trans activist community. That is the way the media and the left operate. When the specifics of an atrocity do not fit their agenda, they just ignore it or spin it into something else. And when they do, at least possibility fit the agenda. They flog it relentlessly. To make it very clear to casual viewers that when people on this side of the spectrum, this end of the spectrum speak or do things or pass laws or whatever, and then someone way out there on the fringe does something evil. There is a direct line, A to B, blood on their hands. Complicity. Whereas at the other end of the spectrum, their end of the spectrum, right, because journalists are leftists for the most part, when it’s their tribe, well, that’s just unseemly. That’s unfair. We’re not going to do that. We’ll talk about our other hobby horses. Let’s make it gun control. Let’s talk about any other number of things. But we’re not going to do the guilt by association smear job because they don’t want to do that to their own side. They want to do that to the bad people, the people that they hate. And I know this sounds a little extreme, but I believe it to be the case. A lot of the people in the media just don’t care as much when people. That they don’t like from the wrong side of the partizan aisle when they’re the victims of violent crime, they just don’t care as much. Partially because they’re the other. And partially because it doesn’t help them pursue a narrative or an agenda. It’s not helpful to them. In fact, it’s inconvenient to their agenda and their political goals, and therefore it’s kind of annoying. That those acts of violence don’t align with the broader story that they always want to tell, no matter what the facts are. If that sounds extremely cynical and jaded in terms of my view of how the press operates under these circumstances, That’s because it is. And I feel that way because I truly believe it to be accurate. Not everyone, not all of them, not all the time, but as a hive mind that go running in one direction. It is undeniable. And I just rattled off a couple examples that I was ruminating about, getting increasingly angry on the train down to D.C. this morning. Now that’s all a wind up to the following tweets that I would like to read to you. This is from the Chief National Political Reporter for the Associated Press. Supposedly the gold standard of just down the middle journalism. A guy named Steve Peoples. I don’t believe I’ve met him. He follows me on Twitter. So if he follows me, he probably saw some of the things I tweeted today about his work, and I hope he did see them. He needs to see them. So he tweeted this morning. Ron DeSantis scoffed when the ACP issued a travel advisory this spring, warning black people to use extreme care if traveling to Florida. Just three months later, DeSantis is leading his state through the aftermath of a racist attack that left three African-Americans dead. Black leaders in Florida and across the nation, he continues, say they’re outraged by his, meaning DeSantis’, actions and rhetoric ahead of the shooting. So let’s just pause here because it gets worse. Pause for a moment. Here’s the Chief Political Reporter for the AP. Basically saying, okay, the NAACP, this left wing organization, joined other left wing organizations in this big posturing, performative thing where they all joined together and said, Oh, we’re going to issue travel advisories like the State Department does to like. Somalia, Syria, North Korea. But we’re going to do it to Florida because we hate Ron DeSantis and we don’t like what they’re doing in that state. So the NAACP did that warning about black people and how dangerous it is for black people in Florida. DeSantis scoffed, and so did everyone with a brain in their head because it was a nakedly partizan exercise, ignoring the fact, first of all, that a lot of top officials in the in the NAACP live in Florida have moved to Florida voluntarily because it’s a great place to live. It has been growing for good reason. Black people and people of all races have flocked to the state of Florida, not because it’s a racist hellhole where people are dying constantly, but because of the opportunity and the freedom that exists in that state. Florida has a 50 year low in crime rates, 50 year low. That means whether you are black or Hispanic or white or Asian, or you fill in the blank, if you’re living in Florida, you are safer in that state than you have been on average based on the data at any time in the last five decades. And by the way, you’re a hell of a lot safer than you would be in any number of the jurisdictions and cities and states run by the sorts of people that the Associated Press journalists vote for on a regular basis. The crime crisis will get to some of that later and some of these deep blue democratic cities, it’s like, oh, let’s just do some cognitive dissonance and put that off to the side and talk about how dangerous Florida is when the stats show a very different story. Then there’s just this assertion attributing it to specific progressive leaders, quote, outraged by Desantis’ actions and rhetoric. And when you read the story, multiple people have pointed this out. They don’t actually pinpoint the rhetoric of Ron DeSantis that they say led to a white supremacist. Hunting down and murdering black people, which is heinous. DeSantis called him a scumbag. Which is a pretty strong word. He went to Jacksonville to that morning community to offer support and condolences and state aid. We played through the audio. Some people were heckling and booing. He showed up anyway, knowing that was likely to happen. We also applied apply to the Democratic councilwoman in Jacksonville, grabbing the microphone and telling those people, We’re not going to do that here. Now is not the time. Leadership from her, leadership from him. A lot of the clips, by the way, if you if you search for that trending on social media, a lot of the clips cut off right before the black female Democrat defends DeSantis to some extent and really just tells the crowd, hey, that’s inappropriate. Interestingly, it cuts off right there. Because it’s being shared as well. Look at DeSantis getting booed. Isn’t this awesome? Doesn’t this make us feel great? Fellow progressives. That’s the media at work. But if you’re going to pretend, if you’re going to allege that political rhetoric or policies in some way cause some racist. I almost use a bad word. Racist person, a demented sicko to go murder people because of their skin color. You better damn well have really strong evidence that there is some sort of clear line connecting. The rhetoric with the event. And even if you can say, Oh yeah, this guy was I was watching DeSantis speeches on loop on YouTube, that still would not be an excuse to engage in this kind of slander. But we don’t even have anything close to that. It’s just like, oh, DeSantis is fighting against woke stuff and decrying racial indoctrination and sexual indoctrination in schools, ergo, it must have something to do with what happened. So let’s find some activists who are outraged and will blame the rhetoric and policies that is vile. That is disgusting. That is not journalism. And they do it every time only. Against one political party and virtually never against their political party. You know, the AP famously in journalism circles has the handbook sort of like the style guide. Well, the the mainstream American media, quote unquote, news media, their style guide is. Has there been. Some sort of atrocity. Yes. Is it useful to attack conservatives? If so, do so with reckless abandon, regardless of facts. If not, then immediately go to the most available narrative likely gun control. That is how they operate. It is not journalism. It is not fair. It is not worthy of trust. Or prestige or any of that. It is worthy of scorn and contempt. It is activism, in-your-face partizan, ideological identity fueled, unbelievably divisive activism masquerading as journalism. Oh, I’m just getting warmed up because his tweets and his story continue. The Chief Political correspondent for the Associated Press. And I will keep responding to it because as you might detect, I’m a little mad on this one. I’m sick of this stuff. I’ll pick it up where we left off after a short break. Just getting started. It’s Tuesday on the Guy Benson Show.