Over this past weekend, controversial protest of boys from Covington Catholic School intervening with Native American man, Nathan Phillips. According to what Phillips told The Washington Post and The Detroit Free Press, The boys from Covington were predominantly white and were wearing “Make America Great Again” gear.

The Detroit Free Press learned from Phillips, that he was singing a traditional song when the teenagers swarmed around him, some chanting, “Build that wall.” Phillips later told The Washington Post that the conflict began the boys started attacking four African-Americans. He then put himself in between “beast and prey.” The audience and media bought what Nathan Phillips was selling, however later videos surfaced revealing something different from what Phillips told the media. 

Before the videos, there was a mob of people on the internet attacking the boys for supposably harassing a native man. After the videos came out, people went after the people who went after the boys.  The videos never showed the boys acting in any violent or vulgar way. It was merely just teenagers acting how teenagers would act at a protest. Phillips lost his credibility. This goes to show how the people and media jump to conclusions and don’t wait until the whole story is produced. The way the story was first told could have potentially ruin the futures of these young men and seems to be the problem with the media. 

People let their biased opinions and beliefs get in the way of what the true story is before the whole story is considered factual.

So what can be learned from this?

The lesson to be learned here, is that the media is just like everyone else. They are trying to get the story out quick and exploit it and it may be so quick that everything is not what it seems. Not all the sides of the story were told until the videos were released. That is a perfect example of how people jump to conclusions with what the media says and the media is to blame by not providing the true story.