The following is excerpted from the National Review. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
After Duke women’s volleyball player Rachel Richardson alleged that she and her fellow black teammates had racial epithets hurled at them during an August 26 match against BYU, countless pundits rushed to condemn the university while straight-news reporters credulously parroted the student’s account in their coverage of the incident, despite the lack of corroboration.
In a statement of her own, Richardson charged BYU with having failed to act to protect her and her teammates — and the press followed suit.
After initially issuing an apology, BYU announced Friday that its investigation into the matter had not produced “any evidence to corroborate the allegation that fans engaged in racial heckling or uttered racial slurs at the event.” According to the university, that investigation involved reaching out to “more than 50 individuals who attended the event” with affiliations with both schools and a review of “all available video and audio recordings, including security footage and raw footage from all camera angles taken by BYUtv of the match.”
Others did not take nearly so thorough an approach.
At CNN, Alisyn Camerota wondered aloud why only one fan had been initially banned from BYU’s campus (he has since been exonerated and apologized to by the university) since “Richardson said she heard more than one person using racial slurs toward the black players.” Later, during an interview with BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe, Camerota asked “what does it say about the BYU community and culture that this happened?”
Also on CNN, hosts Jim Acosta and Brianna Keilar blindly accepted the facts as Richardson offered them, with Acosta declaring that “a Duke volleyball player is speaking out after she and other black teammates were called racist slurs and threatened during a match against Brigham Young University on Friday,” and Keilar asserting that “A Division I volleyball match at Brigham Young University turned really ugly when black players from Duke University endured racial slurs from at least one fan in the crowd.“
Richardson’s claims were also featured prominently during an August 30 episode of ABC’s Good Morning America.
ABC News correspondent Janai Norman said she was “really impressed” with how the 19-year-old student was handling the situation.
“A lot of grace,” concurred host George Stephanopoulos.
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
Ed GayhartSeptember 12, 2022
What do you expect from the sources mentioned - fairness, integrity and honesty? Those items have not been seen at CNN, ABC for 30 years.
DanSeptember 12, 2022
The evidence would show this is like a Jesse Smolet claim, or like the Duke LaCross rape accusation, You cannot bury the truth, put all the facts out there. This Media group are known liers. False accusations only make race relations more dificult. It destroys trust