Is 'The Only Verdict Vengence'?

So it came to pass that on November the 19th, the day following International Men's Day, Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty by a jury of his piers based on the process, procedures and applicable laws of Kinosha Wisconsin and this was not enough for many. For many, the finding by the jury of not guilty in Mr. Rittenhouse's tail was not the correct verdict; this is of course an opinion that many people are entitled to.

 

After about 2 weeks of arguments and the presentation of evidence to a captured audience; that being the jury who determined that Mr. Rittenhouse's plea of self-defense was well grounded in law and the presented facts. Returning to the many who disagree with the twelve, this author must now ask where did the many get the facts and hear the arguments which allowed those 'the many' to come to their conclusion. 

Most of the 'many' get their information from the NEWS. This is the problem, in that the audience of the NEWS hears what the NEWS states and as such the NEWS gets to lead the conversation. This of course leads to the question - 'Is the NEWS under the same oath and scrutiny as one would find in court?'

The answer to the question directly above is a resounding 'YES'; as the oath and scrutiny come in the form of patronage and litigation. There are, as there has always been, two courts; the first and most notable is the court of law and the second is the court of public opinion. This author recalls a time when the court of law held precedence over the court of public opinion. This ideal of course changed with the introduction of the NEWS outlets such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Couple this with the OJ Simpson trial in 1995 and the incidents surrounding 9/11 2001 events in the USA. These two event primed the audience for a 24x7 news cycle. The problem is that the 24 hour NEWS cycle is not cheap and these companies must negotiate and justify their bottom line. How better to manage that bottom line other than to gin up the news worth reporting. (This is the money)

Admittedly, this author does not have the capability for, nor the proclivity towards watching every NEWS outlet out there for 24 hours a day and so this author does not do that. This author does see the reaction to the news being distributed towards the citizenry because in short one can judge a situation by perceiving the reactions of those around you. 

 

In this situation the noted responses included but are not limited to:

- Rioting in a number of cities across America,

- 500 National Guard members deployed in Kenosha Wisconsin,

- People of public stature, claiming the verdict was racially motivated,

- People of public stature, still claiming the 'assault rifle' crossed a state line, regardless of the fact that charge was dropped or never brought forth, 

- Mr. Rittenhouse obtaining a security team

 

These items are the results of the narrative presented to the general public by some NEWS organizations pretrial. This narrative was not grounded in fact as the facts were not presented until trial. Some NEWS outlets were reporting to the people of America based on assumption and hearsay - in short they lied. (This is the social-political falsehood)

The question that needs to be asked is: does the money drive the falsehood or does the falsehood drive the money, or does that really matter at the end of the day when millions of dollars in damages has been done and people are injured or killed?