Bakari Sellers' blatant lies about Kyle Rittenhouse on CNN inspire Glenn Greenwald's latest righteous indignation over corporate media deception

On November 9, lefty attorney and political commentator Bakari Sellers reminded CNN viewers that Kyle Rittenhouse is evil and the rioters did nothing wrong:

Bakari Sellers still spreading lies #AcrossStateLines

1. His momma did NOT drive him
2. Rittenhouse was NOT the only one to fire shots
3. Rittenhouse did NOT fire the first shot
4. "Protesters" fired MORE shots than Rittenhouse pic.twitter.com/eivI3CWU0E

— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) November 17, 2021

Yahoo fact-checks the lie about Rittenhouse's mom. But misinforms readers about the source of the lie's resurgence. It cites a Nov 13 Insta post and a Nov 10 Fb post, ignoring the fact that CNN spread the lie on Nov 9! @louis_baudoinL https://t.co/lYTAqwo0C0

— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) November 17, 2021

Bakari Sellers broadcasting these lies on CNN, Nov 9: https://t.co/Q7EC6VUdsA

— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) November 17, 2021

It’s only natural that Sellers would be lying through his teeth. After all, he’s committed to the narrative, not the truth.

And as a liberal journalist himself, Glenn Greenwald might be expected to excuse such deception. But he’s one of a small handful of liberal journalists who’s willing to call out corporate media malpractice, and that’s genuinely refreshing.

He weighed in today on the Sellers clip:

In this 15-second CNN clip, @Bakari_Sellers asserts 4 claims about the Kyle Rittenhouse case, every single one of which is demonstrably false.

It's time for my refrain: the vast majority of disinformation comes not from FB or QAnon, but from liberal corporate media outlets: https://t.co/KM3gzFOWFT

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 17, 2021

But Greenwald didn’t stop with Sellers and CNN:

Speaking of corporate media disinformation, @Maddow rightly gets much attention for her deranged conspiracies, but Ground Zero for every media scam is MSNBC's former Bush/Cheney spokesperson @NicolleDWallace. Look at this random 2020 clip to see the lies & insanity she spread: pic.twitter.com/wj3oqJ9EF5

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 17, 2021

One of the things that Wallace clip shows was how central the fraudulent Steele Dossier was to media coverage. Even when not mentioned explicitly, it shaped their key narrative: Putin controlled the US through blackmail: an unhinged conspiracy central to US Trump-era "reporting."

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 17, 2021

By the way: though they will never, ever admit it or face it — that's the benefit of having limitless funding from a billionaire — one of the outlets that most pushed and gave credence to the Steele Dossier fraud was @TheIntercept, always bolstering it.https://t.co/j3EH7629vY pic.twitter.com/2kHqGk49PA

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 17, 2021

Recall that Greenwald left The Intercept, which he’d cofounded, out of disgust.

In fact, The Washington Post recently issued two major retractions of stories involving the Steele Dossier and the role played by Sergei Millian as a source (he wasn't). The Intercept also laundered that false claim, but of course will never retract it.https://t.co/wrKffI7s2b pic.twitter.com/R206SQVmJd

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 17, 2021

Greenwald also shredded the Washington Post when they were forced to retract earlier Steele dossier stories.

Yahoo! News fact-checked the claim that Rittenhouse's mother drove him across sacred state lines to Kenosha and found that it's false: no evidence for it. Yet the fact-based journalists in liberal corporate media won't stop asserting this no matter what:https://t.co/uq8kL2uDTw

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 17, 2021

There's now a viral meme mocking Rittenhouse's mother for looking older than her age – as if it's odd that a mother would be under stress after her son shot 3 people and faces multiple murder charges – accusing her of being a racist for driving him: a total lie from journalists. pic.twitter.com/OBrP4jMdPZ

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 17, 2021

This is an important point about the bullshit "fact-checking" industry. On the rare occasions when they debunk shibboleths of liberal corporate outlets, they don't have the courage to accuse those outlets of lying, so they'll claim it came from FB users:https://t.co/o4PJYI1GGl

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 17, 2021

Almost as if the corporate media haven’t given us much reason to trust them.

I don't know about the quantitative comparison to FB or QAnon, but the qualitative one is entirely valid. CNN saying entirely false things like this on air has more real world damage than 200 people waiting for JFK Jr. to rise from the dead in Dallas. https://t.co/N2iOaJPzOw

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) November 17, 2021