The Sun Times ran a front page story on Saturday about how the Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson had held a meeting with members of the Black Lives Matter Youth group and committed to meeting with them once a month. The absolutely fascinating thing about how prominently the Sun Times decided to run Sam Charles’ story is that it makes you believe that the youth that attended the meeting were actually part of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) group but that does not seem to be the case.
As proof I provide you the following:
.@BLMYouth are not an authorized group & not affiliated w/ @BLMChi or @Blklivesmatter. This is against our politics. We dont meet with cops. https://t.co/NdKtCqreFJ
— BLMChicago (@BLMChi) November 12, 2016
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We sincerely request @BLMYouth reconsider choices & welcome further discussion as we have previously. With revolutionary & liberatory love.
— BLMChicago (@BLMChi) November 12, 2016
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Important statement from @BLMChi on @BLMYouth‘s decison to having monthly meetings with Chicago Police. pic.twitter.com/iEhqBrrxFv
— agitator in chief (@soit_goes) November 12, 2016
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Well this seems pretty clear confirmation that the youth that Johnson met with may be affiliated with a group that calls themselves Black Lives Matter Youth but they are in no way affiliated with the official BLM organization. So the question has to be why would Johnson, Charles, and the Sun Times all back what seems be to a totally bogus story? Is there some mutual interest among all three parties that allow this grossly inaccurate story not only appear in the paper but be featured on page the cover?
One would have to hope that someone in the Sun Times has some kind of contact information for the leadership at Black Lives Matter, right? I guess on the other hand if they don’t that just proves how totally disconnected that newsroom is from what is going on in Chicago. BTW, Sam Charles could have easily just tweeted to the BLM and confirmed that this group of youth were affiliated before the just bought in but that is probably expecting too much from our local press.
I checked Sam Charles twitter feed but found nothing in the way of a correct but instead I just found him promoting this bogus story.
Supt. Eddie Johnson says he’ll meet with BLM Youth once a month from here on out pic.twitter.com/xNRa1iBB7V
— Sam Charles (@samjcharles) November 11, 2016
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Now, I am not saying the meeting didn’t happen. It obviously did but it is just that Charles seems to imply that this group of youth are somehow connected to the larger BLM movement and obviously they aren’t. If they were the story is a much bigger deal than just saying the Superintendent met today with a small group of kids. See it doesn’t have the same kind of headline news. Everyone benefited form the publication of this bogus story. Johnson gets to say he is working with BLM to address race problems when he isn’t remotely doing that. The Sun-Times get a great front page lead story to get people to buy their paper. Charles get a byline on the cover of the newspaper. Everyone is happy except those who read the story and are totally miss-informed about what actually happened.
If you read the story, which I really suggest you don’t, you will see Alderman Matt O’Shea (19th ward) prominently featured in the article. This is the same alderman we wrote about last week when he decided to speak publicly and declare the shooting in Mount Greenwood a good shooting many months before the internal investigation of the shooting was completed. It is well worth the short read.
