CNN finally seems to have discovered the Freedom Convoy protests in Canada. It’s quite something to see the difference in how they cover them compared to the BLM actions in the United States. With the BLM actions, they did everything they could to downplay all the violence, even describing flaming protests as “mostly peaceful,” while with the Freedom Convoy protests, they seemed to be going to every length to twist truly peaceful protests into something threatening.
CNN’s Jake Tapper was interviewing correspondent, Paula Newton, who was in Ottawa talking about the action there.
First, Newton tried to diminish the effect that the Convoy had on politicians across the country dropping restrictions in several Canadian provinces. She noted that the truckers had been parked outside the prime minister’s office for the better part of the last two weeks. What she leaves out is that the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, fled and went into hiding, refusing to even talk to them. Instead, he then announced he had COVID and attacked the truckers from his hideout. He’s only emerged again at Parliament over the past couple of days, where he was heckled and even members of his party called on him to drop the mandates.
Newton claimed that she had been hearing “fear” from people around Canada, “If this is the kind of civil disobedience that is tolerated, they fear for what can happen next? And that fear is real.” Why? “Consider what happened in Toronto.” Gee, what happened there? Were people attacked? Did they smash and burn things like BLM? No, the “fear” was there was another protest that was rising in Toronto. Oh. By the way, CNN, there have been protests in Toronto for days, so you might want to catch up, it isn’t just starting today.
Newton seemed stupefied by people there who were vaccinated who wanted the mandates to come down.
Newton spoke about the blockade at the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, and another blockade at the border between Alberta and Montana noting the “fear” that the “chaos” could extend to the United States.
She revealed that she doesn’t understand that it’s already hit here with truckers trying to form their convoy to D.C. to rally.
But Newton slipped up a bit on the narrative in the next clip when she noted that the truckers had received support from almost every element of society. That doesn’t sound like it’s small or that it’s unpopular. She then hastened to reframe it as a “minority” albeit vocal, that “sowed chaos.”
It’s astounding how these are the same folks who had seemingly no concern about the BLM protests in which people were killed, there were billions in damage across the country, with hundreds of cops attacked. But I guess honking and people against mandates trumps all that for CNN, the misinformation network.