Expert analysis reveals Big Media story about #BLM protester’s death a likely lie

The story appeared early, posted on a major website, bearing all the hallmarks of news legitimacy: a graphic photo with a red blood stain, embedded video, the words “FIRST PERSON” in red caps, title “I Saw a Protester Get Shot….”

Expert analysis, however, reveals the purported eyewitness account of the Sept. 21 shooting of Charlotte protester Justin Carr — published on TheDailyBeast.com that afternoon by Ryan James — as a likely fabrication.

“Writer is either the shooter or was not as close and involved as he wants his readers to believe,” textual analysis expert Richard Whitehead writes.

“The main issue would seem to be was the person reporting this incident actually at the scene as he claims and if so was he really in a position to observe the details that he describes,” another expert, Donald Bender writes. “There are certain statement analytic features that make one question the veracity of this account.”

The story claims to have witnessed a “black male” shooting Carr, then running. It was published as protests over the police shooting of Keith Scott in Charlotte crescendoed in Carr’s death, and turned violent. What piqued my curiosity was the story’s politically loaded cliches and breathless purple prose.

Under the gaze of the world, news pieces like James’ helped give meaning to the disturbing goings-on, which climaxed with Carr’s tragic death. Bender’s and Whitehead’s analyses of the Daily Beast prose raise serious questions about the lengths to which major media are prepared to go to undermine the #BlackLivesMatter narrative, which has been highly successful in swaying public opinion.

Before we go further, let’s take a look at the original Daily Beast piece.

James’ article is titled “Video: I Saw a Protester Get Shot Over Nothing in Charlotte,” and appears under a graphic image of a black man with hand tattoos and ball cap hiding his face, kneeling over a puddle of Carr’s bright blood. It contains a video of what appears to be the shooting’s aftermath. After descriptions of violent protester actions, its climax reads:

“There was a loud pop, then panic and confusion. Standing about 10 yards away, I looked down the barrel of a pistol. Several people were screaming, saying someone was shot in the head and a crowd quickly formed around the victim, a black male. I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, why?’ Breathing heavily, I called 911, pacing around in the street. I could be the person on life support. The bullet had whizzed past me. But here I was, still breathing, and reporting this tragic news unfolding in front of me.

“The shooter, a black male, was standing at the intersection of East Trade and South College streets with the weapon still aimed. He turned and ran. Emergency personnel arrived about five minutes later.”

Then the tale goes right back to tweets and the meta-narrative.

Curious about James, the eponymous “black male,” the looking down the barrel, bullet whizzing by and so forth, I emailed a text copy and hyperlink to two experts in analyzing written information: Whitehead, a forensic statement analyst instructor with 33 years experience in public safety, including Homicide, SWAT, Communications and Intelligence, and Bender, a UC Berkeley-trained, licensed psychotherapist who specializes in clinical and forensic statement analysis.

These are guys whose job it is to read between the lines. Literally. You could say they check for textual “microexpressions.”

Their findings suggest the story is likely invented — pure fiction. Which raises questions about the parallel official narrative, and thereby bolsters claims of four protesters who took to social media to assert that police on the scene shot Carr, as detailed by Jessica McBride at Heavy.com.

For Bender, the parts of James’ story that raise questions include mixing up tenses, perspective changes and “gratuitous chronological sequence reversal.”

“This mixture of tenses and use of the present tense to describe an historical incident is often seen in testimony that is fabricated rather than simply recalled,” he notes. “The present tense is used because the writer is is presently imagining what it would have been like if he had actually been there.

“Internal self-reflection (I thought to myself) is often found in fabricated accounts. No one can disprove what might have been going on in his head so it is safe testimony to recount.

“The spatial perspective reflects a hyperbolic heightening rather than a literal scenic description. Ten yards away is too far to be ‘staring down the barrel’ of a pistol. Also ‘The bullet whizzed past me’ adds to the fabricated sensual immediacy of being close to the action.

“The key line ‘I could be the person on life support.’ is telling because it is subconsciously indicative of the larger fiction that ‘I could have been…’ the person right in the middle of these important newsworthy events if only I actually was there. Even more than that the writer in fantasy gets to glory in the victim-hood of the actual victim without having to actually bleed.”

Besides noting that the writer is either the shooter or exaggerating his proximity to the event, Whitehead notes that some passages are self-contradictory, and that others “[do] not reflect appropriate emotion, if true.”

James’ article appears to contain two of the “Ten Signs of Deception”: Lack of detail and lack of narrative balance.

“Truthful statements usually contain specific details,” the article explains. “Those who fabricate a story, however, tend to keep their statements simple and brief. Few liars have sufficient imagination to make up detailed descriptions of fictitious events.”

The story’s nadir is its reliance on three words James uses to describe the two most important individuals: “a black male.”

“The shooter, a black male …” and “the victim, a black male.” Black male. Black male. What about other descriptors? If James was there, and saw Raquan Borum, who Charlotte Assistant D.A. Clayton Jones announced has confessed, shoot Carr, one would think he’d notice more details about a suspect whose mugshots feature gold teeth and dreadlocks.

Additionally, the description of the actual shooting comprises 160 of the story’s 553 words — 29 percent — so it’s also narratively imbalanced.

“In a complete and truthful narrative,” the Ten Signs of Deception explains, “the balance will be approximately 20 percent to 25 percent prologue, 40 percent to 60 percent critical event and 25 percent to 35 percent aftermath. If one part of the narrative is significantly shorter than expected, important information may have been omitted.”

Other key questions include the story’s author and time of publication.

A Twitter user named @MelioraMed responded to the Daily Beast’s tweet of the story: “@thedailybeast who is Ryan James? First time he appears to have written for your publication…” A search of 70,496 stories and 11,480 videos on the website brought up no other results for Ryan James besides this very strange story, while comparative searches for other Daily Beast writers brought hundreds or thousands of stories and posts.

Perhaps most telling, the story bears a timestamp of 2:02 p.m. EST, three hours before the event appears to have taken place. By comparison, a local Fox TV live broadcast that appears to show the seconds during which Carr was fatally wounded was timestamped 5:42 p.m. EST.

A City of Charlotte tweet 45 minutes later described the crime as “civilian on civilian.”

What should we make of a major news website, which from 2010 to 2013 was merged with Newsweek, putting up apparent propaganda?

It’s hard to say. For starters, though, the fake story does not mean Borum, the police suspect in custody, is innocent.

Nor does it mean the police shot Carr, despite social media-based claims by reported bystanders Minister Steve Knight, Todd Zimmer, defense attorney Kahran Meyer and Jimmy James Tyson that that’s exactly what happened.

There is a court of public opinion, which you are in, and a court of law. A healthy democracy depends on both, and both depend on honesty and transparency.

Clearly, we need to look more closely not just at the Daily Beast story and the trustworthiness of our media accounts but at Justin Carr’s tragic, but important death, around which many questions remain. For example, the Charlotte Observer’s main story about Carr’s tragic death and Borum’s confession contains no information linking the two men, nor a motive.

It’s not evident whether James, a supposed eyewitness, has been interviewed by police, given a statement, or is considered a witness.

It’s also not clear if the exposing of James’ story as a probable fiction or at least exaggeration will change anything at the Daily Beast, a website whose “contact” page lists no phone number at all even though parent company IAC’s market capitalization is $5 billion, plenty for a reception desk. The Daily Beast’s been called on the carpet before, as in 2015 in a story about Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and sexual assault on that state’s college campuses:

“The Daily Beast is committed to covering the news fairly and accurately, and we should have checked this story more thoroughly,” unnamed Daily Beast editors wrote. “We deeply regret the error and apologize to Gov. Walker and our readers. Our original story should be considered retracted.”

If Ryan James’ story is representative, and not a mistake — or the worst editing job ever — the Daily Beast can fairly be accused of engaging in a war of propaganda, one more closely resembling historical dictatorships than the free and honest media we need today in our troubled American democracy.