Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth admitted on Dec. 29 that her caucus steered right wing YouTuber Nick Shirley to film Somali-owned day care centers in Minnesota, which Shirley falsely accused of fraud, reports MPR News:
She spoke with MPR News host Clay Masters about why this video and others like it are going viral within a new media ecosystem. It is predicated on what I would call a kernel of truth in many cases, but has also engaged in a fair amount of fearmongering, the use of really explosive terminology, references to violence, and the suggestion, essentially that the world’s going to hell in a handbasket, and only President Trump and his supporters can defend us from this onslaught. It’s a lot of rhetoric with relatively little substance behind it. He’s also, I think, significantly relying upon an individual who’s identified as David. We see him in the video, but he’s never given any other identification in terms of his full name or what his research is, or how he’s collected the information he claims that he has as he waves around documents. All of these things, I think, again, have the earmarks of not what most journalists would consider to be ethical journalistic practices.
University of Minnesota media law professor Jane Kirtley said the video is flashy, but not meaty. There aren’t a lot of facts to back up the claims. “It’s a lot of rhetoric with relatively little substance behind it,” Kirtley said.
(Sources: MPR News, MNHouseInfo)