The Washington Post issued an editor’s note Friday evening over their coverage of the Covington Catholic debacle from January. The note comes as the main student involved, Nicholas Sandmann, is suing the Post.
A video went viral that allegedly showed Sandmann and his classmates taunting a Native American man, but it turned out only to distort the actual events that unfolded. The longer video showed the students had seemingly been harassed by a group of “Black Hebrew Israelite” protesters, which had not been depicted in the original viral clip. (RELATED: Covington Catholic Student In MAGA Hat Says He Wasn’t Disrespectful)
The Post has issued an Editor’s Note about updates to its initial coverage of the Jan. 18 incident at the Lincoln Memorial: https://t.co/rhzKZ1715K
We’ve also deleted this Jan. 19 tweet in light of later developments. For more, see the Editor’s Note. pic.twitter.com/O7qCSnBMPO
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 1, 2019
“Subsequent reporting, a student’s statement and additional video allow for a more complete assessment of what occurred, either contradicting or failing to confirm accounts provided in that story — including that Native American activist Nathan Phillips was prevented by one student from moving on, that his group had been taunted by the students in the lead-up to the encounter, and that the students were trying to instigate a conflict.”
“The high school student facing Phillips issued a statement contradicting his account; the bishop in Covington, Ky., apologized for the statement condemning the students,” it continued, adding that “an investigation conducted for the Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School found the students’ accounts consistent with videos.”
Many other media outlets published the original video and were forced to apologize or issue corrections for their coverage.
Sandmann has filed a lawsuit against the Post for $250 million in damages, equal the amount for which Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos purchased the newspaper in 2013. The editor’s note was published a week-and-a-half after the lawsuit was filed.
