FAKE NEWS: Newsrooms are sanitizing that Ivanka harassment story.
Two men were ejected from a JetBlue flight Thursday for reportedly harassing Ivanka Trump and her three children.
We know about the alleged incident because one of the men tweeted about it in real-time, and JetBlue confirmed in a statement that there was indeed a “conflict” aboard one of its planes.
But despite the airline’s statement, and the fact that one of the men involved specifically used the word “harass,” some headlines have sanitized the reported incident to the point where it’s basically a story about nothing.
Here is what Twitter user and Hunter College professor Matthew Lasner tweeted Thursday morning about his husband: “Ivanka and [her husband Jared Kushner] at JFK T5, flying commercial. My husband chasing them down to harass them. #banalityofevil.” . . .
What’s really remarkable here is that even though media’s coverage of the incident has centered almost entirely on Lasner’s say-so, many headlines have omitted any sort of allusion to his own use of the word “harass.”
From the Associated Press: “Man says he and husband removed from JetBlue flight after ‘expressing displeasure’ that Ivanka Trump was aboard.”
From Yahoo News: “Man kicked off JetBlue flight for questioning why Ivanka Trump was on it.”
From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Passengers kicked off flight after run-in with Ivanka Trump.”
From the Washington Post: “Passenger who confronted Ivanka Trump gets kicked off Jet Blue flight.”
From CNN: “JetBlue forced a man off a flight after an apparent incident involving Ivanka Trump and her husband.”
It goes on like that.
There’s a difference between playing it safe when there’s a shortage of information and sanitizing a story completely of its most newsworthy details.
Imagine if this had happened to a Democrat.
