CBC Apologizes Over Covington Kids Story

In the January 20th edition of one of CBC’s flagship news programs, The Weekly, hosted by longtime CBC reporter Wendy Mesley, the national broadcaster falsely reported that the #MAGAKids were harassing and bullying a peaceful indigenous elder by crowding him and chanting, “Build that wall!”

These kids were in Washington D.C. on Friday, January 18, to attend the massive pro-life rally being held in the capital that day. While initial media reports of the confrontation ran hot with charges of racism and cries of “Trump’s America!”, thanks to a viral photo showing what appeared to be a smug teen encroaching in on an elderly native man’s space, the facts that followed proved these claims to be worthless.

It turns out that it was actually Native Elder, Nathan Phillips, who initiated the encounter, approaching the #MAGAKid, Nick Sandmann, and beating his drum right next to Sandmann. Phillips was followed by a group of Black Hebrew Israelites, a black supremacist cult, who hurled insults and racial epithets towards Sandmann and his classmates.

All of this became clear once further video of the encounter began to surface on Saturday. Despite the adjusted coverage of mainstream news sources like the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post, Mesley covered the story on her Sunday morning show in an uncritical fashion.

Further to that, Mesley actually repeated the now debunked claim made by Phillips that the boys were chanting “build that wall!” at him during the encounter. In addition, Mesley also commented that “Trump rhetoric” was now “inspiring teenage bullies.”

Even after the Washington Post issued an apology on March 1st for their erroneous coverage of the event, under threat of a $250 million dollar lawsuit from Sandmann, Mesley and the CBC had still not corrected their reporting nearly a month and a half after the incident.

Seeing this, a reporter from The Post Millennial reached out to the national broadcaster to inquire whether an apology was in the works. After some initial contact and deliberation, the CBC agreed to issue an apology and made good on their word this morning.

Mesley ended her show on Sunday saying they wanted to, “clarify the record” on this story and pointed out that the claim made by Phillips that the boys chanted “Build that wall!” was false.

Finally, ending off the program, Mesley said that they “regret characterizing those teens as ‘teenage bullies’.”