NPR reports, without evidence, that there is no evidence

 Back in May, I commented in Journalists broadcasting their reports without evidence on a new NPR tic.  Whenever reporting a claim by Trump, they now report his claim and then "without evidence."  It is a childish, annoying, and epistemically unsound tic.  He might be interpreting the evidence differently or he might be ignoring counter-evidence but rarely do people espouse something without some foundation for their belief.

All NPR was doing was signaling that they did not agree with his interpretation of the evidence.  But instead of providing counter-evidence, they were content to name call.  Dangerous for a company in the business of disseminating news and with the tag line "Stand With The Facts." They have become highly adverse to facts and are now reduced to the childlike taunt "back at you" instead of using their words and making an actual argument based on evidence, logic and reason.  

And as I suggested, it has become reflexive.  Nothing he says is quoted without the useless appendage "without evidence."  An unthinking framing.  

Which is just about the only explanation for: 

President Trump declined to condemn the actions of the suspected 17-year-old shooter of 3 protesters against police brutality in Kenosha — claiming, without evidence, that it appeared the gunman was acting in self-defense.https://t.co/a7LnGABckN

— NPR (@NPR) September 1, 2020

Click to follow the thread. 

Ignore the fact that NPR is asking for the President to take a stand on a legal case which has not been investigated or adjudicated yet (as if NPR did not understand that the accused are innocent until proven guilty.)  And ignore the fact that the three rioters (not protesters) were shot during a riot with mass looting and property destruction.  Protesting police brutality was not a factor in any of the event.

They just had to robotically report that the President refused to express an opinion on a state level legal case while "claiming, without evidence, that it appeared the gunman was acting in self-defense."

For a news company, NPR doesn't seem to be following the news.

There are multiple videos for Pete's sake.  You can see the movie you want to see.  NPR can interpret the video of the victim of mob violence fleeing his attackers and eventually shooting them as the aggressor.  But they cannot claim there is no evidence.  There is a surfeit of evidence.

The very next day, the New York Times, the private sector equivalent of NPR, did a frame by frame analysis of multiple videos in Tracking the Suspect in the Fatal Kenosha Shootings.  Using their own formulation, does NPR believe that the New York Times is reporting without evidence.

I suppose NPRs review of the NYT might read something like:

The New York Times claims, without evidence, that "Six minutes later footage shows Mr. Rittenhouse being chased by an unknown group of people into the parking lot of another dealership several blocks away."

The New York Times claims, without evidence, that "Mr. Rittenhouse turns toward the sound of gunfire as another pursuer lunges toward him from the same direction. Mr. Rittenhouse then fires four times, and appears to shoot the man in the head."

The New York Times claims, without evidence, that "As Mr. Rittenhouse is running, he trips and falls to the ground. He fires four shots as three people rush toward him." 

This is childish, petulant and reflexively misleading "reporting" by NPR.  We have a bombastic President who dramatically over-claims on many things.  We of course do need independent media to fact check him (and most politicians.)

But this puerile bad habit of claiming there is no evidence when there is in fact lots of evidence, is explosively bad for NPRs credibility.  The fact that the evidence is pretty compelling that the facts are different from what NPR wants to report is even more destructive.

What the video fairly clearly shows is a violent mob chasing a seventeen year-old, throwing things at him and assaulting him with a skateboard.  Might evidence emerge that he did something that warranted such pursuit?  Possibly.  But for the time being we have a lot of evidence and that evidence is highly suggestive that an innocent man defended himself from a violent mob.  And apparently NPR is desperate to deny that evidence.