Truth be Damned?
When evidence and narrative collide.
Note: I originally sent this one to paying subscribers only, but I’ve decided it’s important enough that I want to open it up to everyone. Thanks for reading.
Like millions of other people, I’ve been reading Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter pretty much every day for the past year or two. Richardson recounts the highlights and lowlights of the day’s news with a historian’s perspective in a tone that hovers somewhere around where sadness, rage, and compassion overlap. Her newsletter, which started out as a private summary for friends, has exploded in popularity largely because people are weary of the political sleight of hand they sense from Fox, NPR, MSNBC, and … well, practically every mainstream news source. Heather tells it to you straight, with enough historical context to help you see how current events fit into the flow of history.
But a recent newsletter made me worry that Richardson may be succumbing to the same seductions that have reduced so many previously trusted news sources to slanted opinion factories, which would be a shame.
Here’s her framing of the arrest of the Highland Park shooter and the police shooting of Jayland Walker:
Police arrested the alleged Highland Park shooter, a white 21-year-old, without incident, inspiring comparisons to the police shooting of 25-year-old Jayland Walker of Akron, Ohio, last week after a stop for a minor traffic violation. Walker fled from the scene in his car and then fled from the car. Officers shot him, saying now they believed he was reaching for a gun. A medical examiner found 60 bullet wounds (not a typo) in Walker’s body, which a medical examiner said was handcuffed when it arrived at the coroner’s office. Walker was unarmed. He was Black.
Nothing Richardson wrote here is demonstrably false, but she’s clearly writing to make a point: Police arrest white killers “without incident,” while they execute unarmed black people for “minor traffic violations.”
Let me be clear. I’m not arguing that there’s no truth to this general narrative. I’m not arguing that there is no systemic racism in American policing. I’m not arguing that black men aren’t justified in being extremely nervous about interacting with police. What I’m arguing is that this kind of writing, which is presented as a factual account of events, is implicitly dishonest and corrosive to the fabric of American society — precisely the opposite of what Richardson hopes to achieve with her newsletter, I think.
It’s a truism that what’s left out is as important as what’s put in. Reading Richardson’s summary, you wouldn’t know that according to police, Walker had a gun, fired it at police during his attempted escape, and the gun was recovered at the scene, along with Walker’s engagement ring. You wouldn’t know Walker (or someone driving his car) ran a red light the night before and fled police (who let him go when he reached the county line). You wouldn’t know Walker was grieving the very recent death of his fiancée — which, along with the previous night’s fleeing of police may suggest Walker hope to provoke a suicide-by-police situation.1
This is a lot to leave out, and paints a very different picture from Richardson’s account: An unarmed black man got pulled over, panicked, tried to get away, and was shot 60 times by racist cops.
Look, maybe the police are lying about all this, but that’s unlikely. With video from dashcams and 13 police bodycams, they’d be unlikely to get away with it for long. Maybe they planted the pistol in the car (with an engagement ring?), but forensic evidence will quickly reveal whether that pistol was fired recently, whose fingerprints are on it, etc. Did the police freak out and over-react by firing sixty or more times? No doubt.
Again, my point is not to defend the police or to deny that there are widespread, systemic racial inequities in policing, conviction rates, and so on. What I’m trying to defend is truth and the honest reporting of fact, and it’s a fact that this evidence exists and must be included in any balanced account of this tragic event.
I understand the outrage, and how outrage seduces us into framing narratives that justify our outrage. But these narratives also feed into the outrage and perpetuate it, often with devastating consequences. An honest assessment of the evidence in this case simply doesn’t feed into the narrative Richardson presents: Cops execute unarmed black man for minor traffic stops but treat white assassin gently.
That’s one of the narratives currently tearing American society apart, and we shouldn’t feed it when it’s not true. When it is true, call it out, consequences be damned. But if it’s not true, making the facts fit a false narrative helps no one and harms us all.
https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/2022/07/04/jayland-walker-akron-police-shooting-what-we-know-traffic-stop-new-franklin/7801059001/
Excellent and important points! Thank you for having the courage and taking the time to make them in this piece. I find it scary how few people catch this all-to-common sleight of hand being used these days.
Chris, I just found you via Andrew Sullivan. I have been reading Dr. Richardson's newsletter for about a year, but not daily. I know that hers is the most popular substack and followed religiously by a couple of people I know.
Sadly what I have found again and again is that Dr. Richardson loves to pour on the sins of omissions when it suits her: I have noticed her not mentioning relevant details too many times for it to be an infrequent thing.
I enjoy the historical details she provides. But I wonder, Is that history also being presented with dollops of sins of commission and sins of omission to make the political ends that Dr. Richardson wishes to be?