KBOI, an Idaho CBS affiliate owned by the conservative media company Sinclair Broadcasting Group, is under fire for attaching a photo of Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson to a since-deleted tweet about an unrelated bank robbery that occurred in Iowa:
Sinclair owned station @KBOITV is using an image of @deray getting arrested at protest for this story about robbery. I've asked for comment. pic.twitter.com/UCxV99OgCm
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 15, 2017
McKesson himself responded on Twitter to deny he has been involved in any robberies:
I haven't been anywhere near a bank robbery. FYI. https://t.co/c7mWZlMLR8
— deray (@deray) July 15, 2017
KBOI apologized by tweeting: “We messed up. We mistakenly tweeted a photo of @deray with an unrelated story link about a bank robbery. We at KBOI are very sorry.”
If Sinclair Broadcasting Group sounds familiar, they’ve been in the news a lot recently. A new deal has them poised to become the largest owner of TV stations in the U.S and their reporting was recently called out by John Oliver for being bigoted and targeting communities and people of color in segments that their local affiliates are required to run.
The same image of McKesson was used last night in a tweet used by a different Sinclair-owned station, KATU in Portland, Oregon, on a story about McKesson and four other Black Lives Matter activists being sued for inciting violence and inspiring an Army veteran who attacked police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2016, killing three and leaving the unidentified plaintiff disabled.
https://twitter.com/KATUNews/status/886050187726135297
The photo in question was taken nearly two weeks before the attack on police after McKesson was arrested at a protest over a white police officer shooting and killing Alton Sterling.
(Via Fusion)