No, the media didn’t “miss the mark.” The portrayal of Kyle Rittenhouse as a rabid, gun-crazy white supremacist was intentional. It’s also the default view of all gun owners by those in the media, especially gun owners who use a firearm to defend themselves.
Online articles dedicate paragraph after paragraph to discussing the “peaceful” protestors and how fearful they were when they saw someone wearing a backwards baseball cap and a gun—that would be Kyle.
Reporters lead with Biden’s words which link Rittenhouse to “white supremacists and white nationalists and Neo-Nazis and the KKK.” Although they are forced to admit that there is absolutely no evidence to connect Rittenhouse with these violent and horrible groups, it’s easy to skip over the disclaimers, which are sandwiched in between repeated Biden quotes.
These same articles barely event attempt to reference the statements from Kyle’s attorneys—his own representatives who are telling the story from his perspective.
But who expects the press to actually care about the facts that make a gun owner look good? There may be exceptions, but in general, mainstream media has about the same amount of unbiased characterization of gun owners as Elizabeth Warren has Indian blood. It just ain’t so, y’all.
– Rachel Malone in Media Completely Missed the Mark on Kyle Rittenhouse