It’s long been the case that when a Republican is accused of something, the focus of the media’s reporting is on the accusation the Republican is facing. Meanwhile when it’s a Democrat found in identical circumstances, the focus of their reporting is the Democrats’ denial of the accusations levied at them.
But that’s only when a story isn’t possible for them to ignore. After police bodycam footage was made public Tuesday night showing the aftermath of a domestic dispute between Georgia Senate Democrat candidate Raphael Warnock and his now ex-wife Ouleye Ndoye, once again the media is proving that they also pick sides in the stories that they aren’t covering.
In the video she claims he ran over her foot with his car when trying to leave their Atlanta home. Warnock can be seen denying he ran over her foot on purpose, claiming he thought she was clear of the car when he started to move.
Later in the video, Ndoye tells officers that her then-husband is running for Senate and is trying to protect his reputation.
“This man’s running for United States Senate, and all he cares about right now is his reputation,” Ndoye told the officer. “I’ve been trying to be very quiet about the way that he is for the sake of my kids and his reputation. I’ve tried to keep the way that he acts under wraps for a long time, and today he crossed the line. So that is what is going on here. And he’s a great actor. He is phenomenal at putting on a really good show.”
But you wouldn’t have heard a peep about it on nearly every network out there.
According to an analysis from NewsBusters:
Tuesday night, NewsBusters asked if the broadcast networks would care to cover the newly revealed police body camera video featuring Georgia Senate candidate Raphael Warnock (D) as they responded to a domestic dispute. Despite the alleged incident being contemporaneous and including video from the police response, ABC, CBS, and NBC omitted the story from their flagship morning and evening news programs in the 24 hours since the story broke on the Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight.
There’s no doubt that if either of the Republicans running in the Georgia Senate race (Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue) were involved in a domestic dispute, it would be the media’s new flavor of the week to use against them.
Only Fox News spent any time on Wednesday highlighting the video.
NBC finally decided to spend some time on it this morning, with their chyron reading that the video “appears to show Warnock domestic dispute.” They also inevitably make it clear that Warnock denies the allegations.
NBC NEWS: "Video appears to show Warnock domestic dispute"
"Appears" to show? Really, NBC? pic.twitter.com/tE20nn77yr
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) December 24, 2020
The Warnock campaign claimed that the video was a “new attack from Loeffler” against his family. The campaign said in a statement:
And while the video that recently surfaced raises no new allegations, Republicans are hoping it raises doubts about Warnock less than two weeks away from his runoff against Senator Kelly Loeffler. A Warnock campaign spokesperson tells Fox News, “This is desperate and shameful. Kelly Loeffler has spent her entire campaign attacking Reverend Warnock and has now stooped to a new level of attacking his family.”
Warnock’s ex-wife would likely agree that the video did demonstrate an attack on his family – or at least the aftermath of it. .
