Over the weekend, video surfaced of a violent brawl Friday night at Cincinnati, Ohio’s annual music festival where a man and woman where beaten to the ground (and then some) by a violent mob. Given the victims appeared to be white and the mob black, ABC, CBS, and NBC have steered clear given the clear racial breakdown and not given it a single second on their flagship morning or evening newscasts.
In contrast, the Fox News Channel, Newsmax, and NewsNation recognized the seriousness of this story, providing multiple segments since video went viral.
Here’s a quick summary of what happened, courtesy of our friend and native Ohioan Madeline Leesman at Townhall:
A viral video filmed Friday evening shows a violent brawl in Cincinnati, Ohio where a man and a woman were attacked by a street mob.
The altercation took place during the annual Cincinnati Music Festival.
The video shows a man being punched and thrown on the ground by two individuals. Then, a mob surroun ds the man and begins stomping on him and kicking him.
When the man eventually gets up and walks away, a woman appears to shield him from further harm. Then, a man clocks the woman in the head. She falls to the ground instantly, appearing to be unconscious.
Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat officials in Cincinnati initially tried to sweep it all under the rug, either dragging their feet in commenting or offering pointless paper statements.
This included the Cincinnati Police Chief blaming social media and the vice mayor calling it “one incident of adults fighting.”
Yes, boys being boys is what you call a woman being knocked to the ground, out cold and bleeding from her mouth.
Thankfully, our friend Mary Margaret Olohan reported on Monday the FBI was joining the investigation to the perpetrators with five now charged.
NBC News refused to run it on Today or NBC Nightly News, but they showed they knew about it and made sure it mentioned it once on their early-morning/middle-of-the-night program, Early Today and at least four times on their streaming platform, NBC News NOW.
The two mentions came early Monday evening on Hallie Jackson’s eponymous show. Here was a 19-second news brief she delivered on the ugly scene. This was from the first hour and reracked in the second:
Tuesday’s Early Today had not one but two teases on it with host Frances Rivera declaring word on “[n]ew arrests in a vicious brawl that went viral.”
Instead of a brief, the segment went two minutes and 23 seconds and correspondent Adrienne Broaddus delivering a voice-over report.
She started with her own recap of what videos from the scene showed:
Chaos on the streets of Cincinnati. Video posted online appears to show a verbal altercation on the sidewalk. At one point, a man wearing a white shirt appears to slap the man in the red shirt, then others jump in. As fists fly, one man falling to the ground, repeatedly kicked and hit for nearly a minute. Some in the crowd attempt to break up the fight. Moments later, it appears a man punches one woman in the face, knocking her to the ground, lying still for nearly 10 seconds, blood spilling from her mouth until another woman helps her.
Broaddus gave local Cincinnati officials a leg up, touting a paper statement from the mayor, Aftab Pureval, but left out his party ID until later.
“The shocking videos rapidly spreading on social media and instantly becoming a political flashpoint. Vice President JD Vance weighing in,” she added with the Vance soundbite saying what he took away from the video was “a mob of lawless thugs beating up on an innocent person.”
Broaddus then revealed Vance’s “half-brother, Cory Bowman, is running to unseat Cincinnati’s current Democratic mayor” and released his own statement “calling for the resignation of the city manager over the weekend.”
She also lamented “some posting angles with captions focused on the race of those involved” with “the videos and the controversy continu[ing] to catch fire on the right” and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon posting on X that “federal hate crimes laws apply to ALL Americans.”
“The videos reviewed by NBC News do not show what led up to the fight, but police say they’ve already filed charges against five people as the investigation continues,” she concluded ahead of sound from the police chief huffing that “anyone who put their hands on another individual during this incident in an attempt to cause harm, will face consequences.”
Broaddus’s report continued to have a shelf-life on NBC News NOW with two airings in the noon and 2:00 p.m. Eastern editions of NBC News Daily.
Co-host Vicky Nguyen had the setup followed by co-host Zinhle Essmuah in the later hour (click “expand”):
NGUYEN: Well...five people have been charged in connection with a violent brawl that broke out in Cincinnati over the weekend. The fight that's going viral online has sparked a new debate on crime. It’s even caught the eye of the White House. NBC News correspondent Adrienne Broaddus has more on how it all unfolded and a warning that some of what you’re about to see is disturbing.
(....)
ESSAMUAH: Let’s turn now to Ohio where at least five people are facing charges after a violent brawl that broke out. That fight quickly went viral on social media and has sparked on new debate on crime in this country. NBC’s Adrienne Broaddus has more on how it unfolded and we do want to warn you, some of the video you’re about to see is disturbing.
