After CNN showed footage of Kenosha, Wisconsin, burning while an on-screen chyron called the rioting there “mostly peaceful,” the responses on Twitter were mostly snarky.
Early Tuesday, CNN’s Omar Jimenez was broadcasting from the ground about the unrest in Kenosha, which began Sunday after 29-year-old Jacob Blake was shot by police.
While Jimenez was talking, CNN’s chyron across the screen labeled the unrest as follows: “FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING.”
The dissonance between the chyron and reality was briefly highlighted by the reporter when Jimenez noted that the raging inferno being shown was “one of multiple locations that have been burning in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the course of the night.”
In his commentary, Jimenez said daytime protests Monday were peaceful, but — as has been the pattern throughout the urban unrest that began in May after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis — turned violent after dark.
On a night when buildings were torched and businesses were vandalized, Jimenez summed up the lawlessness by saying “things began to get a little bit more contentious, things were thrown back and forth.”
As Jimenez spoke, the video CNN played beside him showed rioters throwing objects at a line of law enforcement personnel.
