With a major tagline of the sitting president's campaign being "Fake News" it is not surprise that the accuracy and credibility of the mainstream media is being put into question on a nearly daily basis. Obviously news corporations are going to have biases, but when these biases cause stories that are inaccurate or untrue to make headlines, that is when we start to get in trouble. It is extremely difficult for the public to have informed opinions that move us forward when the major sources of information are corrupted by maligned bias.

On Saturday, the New York Times wrote a story with the headline "Boys in 'Make America Great Again' Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous Peoples March." featuring a short clip of a Native American protester beating a ceremonial drum in front of a smirking high school student. It was printed that the group of boys surrounded and harassed the protester while chanting "build the wall." It was later reported in an interview with the protester that the boys had engaged in harassment of another group of minorities and that he was trying to step in to ease the tensions between the two. With all of this damning evidence, many people took to social media describing their disgust. Many verified twitter accounts began to post calls to violence and various death threats to the kids, including "Burn the [expletive] school down.", "If you are a true fan of [Uncle] Shoes I want you to fire on any of these red hat [expletive" when you see them. On sight.", and "#MAGAkids go screaming, hats first, into the woodchipper." These tweets, mind you, were directed at high-school aged children.

By the very next day, a student at Covington Catholic High School released a statement defending he and his colleagues, mentioning that the media had misreported the incident. Not long after, a 90 minute video was released showcasing the entire incident from an outside perspective. The video not only completely exonerates the students, but shows that the protester approached them while they were performing school cheers, and as the student remained still the Native American proceeded to play his drum close to the student's face, while not making any efforts to go around. Additionally, there were no such "build the wall" chants present in the video. Furthermore, the group of minorities, known as the Black Hebrew Israelites were shouting homophobic profanities at the group coupled with racist remarks such as "Go back to Europe, cracker, this isn't your land." Despite the evidence of a completely botched story, few retractions were issued and the kids are still being widely vilified on all social media platforms.

The students have yet to return to the school since the incident due to safety concerns regarding threats to the school from the incident. Additionally, some parents have hired lawyers to pursue a possible libel lawsuit against the many media outlets that falsely reported the story.

A lot can be said about the current bias in American media, but in this instance the incompetence of the people we trust to deliver us our news directly affected the lives of highschool children exposing them to some of the worst the world has to offer, over a story that tried to paint them as the villains from the very start. Why was the media and public so quick to assume the guilt of a child with such little evidence? Perhaps it is time to evaluate our biases in order to combat the damage they have already done.