Miranda Devine: Media falls for Jussie Smollett hoax because it fits narrative

The American media seems to have lost the ability to investigate and critique, as shown in the case of actor Jussie Smollett, writes Miranda Devine.

The American media has made a habit of falling for wild hoaxes. Gone is the hard-bitten scepticism you might expect from the Fourth Estate.

When it comes to bolstering their beloved meta-narrative that America is an ­irredeemably racist, homophobic, unequal society, they have lost their critical thinking skills.

Most recently it was the fake racism hoax by B-grade TV actor Jussie Smollett who has just been convicted for staging an anti-gay, racist hate crime against himself three years ago in Chicago, wasting thousands of hours of police time and creating racial unrest in a city that is already a powder keg.

He told police that he went out for a sandwich in the freezing cold at 2am and was assaulted by two white men who wrapped a noose around his neck and poured bleach on him while yelling homophobic and racist slurs and ­declaring “This is MAGA country”.

Jussie Smollett’s mugshot after being charged with falsely reporting a crime.

The left-bias in the US media sees hoaxes like the fake attack organised by Jussie Smollett on himself become more commonplace. These are just the stories the media are begging for.

MAGA is short for the Donald Trump slogan “Make America Great Again” and of course Trump was the president at the time.

Never mind that Cook County, Chicago, where the fake attack took place, is a Democrat enclave which voted more than 70 per cent for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The whole tale was ridiculous.

During a one-week trial two Nigerian brothers testified that Smollett recruited them to fake the attack on him and told them he wanted a video of the event to post on social media.

Smollett wasn’t worried that his patently false story would get him into trouble when he reported the “crime” to police. He knew he would be treated unquestioningly as a hero by the media because it’s the story they were begging for at the time to malign Trump.

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace. Picture: AFP

US Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh was smeared as a rapist before getting the job. Picture: AFP

They constantly “fall” for these type of hoaxes, whether it was a harmless loop in a garage door pull at NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s ­garage that someone mistook for a “noose”, or the smearing of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a rapist during his confirmation hearing, or the lie that teenager Kyle Rittenhouse was a “white supremacist” who shot dead two black (wrong) protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, or the laughably pornographic Steele Dossier purporting to prove collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.

They were all implausible from the start, but an inordinate amount of ­energy and emotion went into propping them up until they collapsed under their own weight.

After Smollett’s conviction, North Carolina’s black Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson best identified the damage done.

Smollett “committed the ultimate act of disrespect; he spit on us.

“He spit on the collective graves of every black person murdered because of the colour of their skin. He spit on the grave of every person murdered because of their lifestyle. He spit on the grave of every person murdered because of their political beliefs.”

US teen Kyle Rittenhouse becomes emotional describing events leading up to the shooting of three demonstrators in August 2020. Picture: AFP

“He spit in the face of every American and America itself. He forged a sharp-edged weapon from a LIE and attempted to use it to tear open the old wounds of bigotry while bearing false witness against his political ­opponents and the Nation that has blessed him so richly”.

Robinson went on to castigate “every politician, pundit, actor, religious leader, and member of the media that rushed to judgment and pushed Smollett’s ridiculous story … spitting gleefully upon the graves of the true victims of violence and wilfully wielding the weapon of lies.” The media now wants the story to go away. Embarrassed by their wilful naivete at propagating Smollett’s dangerous hoax, they are doing their best to bury coverage.

It was one brave judge in Chicago who stood up against the fixers and allowed Smollett to be brought to justice. Retired Judge Sheila O’Brien pushed for a special prosecutor, after the radical left Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx intervened to drop the initial charges against him.

“Foxx should be disbarred or recalled for misconduct over what she did in the Smollett case,” wrote Chicago journalist John Kass. Yet she “was endorsed for re-election by… all the top Democrats… She had that [George] Soros campaign cash [we] aren’t supposed to talk about.”

There are other powerful people who should apologise for their behaviour in the Smollett case.

Joe Biden tweeted at the time: “What happened today to Jussie Smollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbour; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”

His now Vice President Kamala Harris’ tweeted : “This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or colour of their skin. We must confront this hate.”

Miranda Devine is in New York for 18 months to cover current affairs for The Daily Telegraph