The so-called ‘Knockout Game’ has been gathering steam as a news narrative, with conservatives demanding that the media finally focus on crimes committed by black people. On Monday morning’s edition of CNN’s New Day, expert guest Harry Houck, a former NYPD detective, went there, explaining to the New Dayanchor team that while “not every black kid is doing this,” the only suggestion he could offer to avoid such attacks was “crossing the street, getting away from them” if you see “a group of black youths.”
Reporting around the “Knockout Game” has been of the sketchy Shark Week variety, with a handful of cases being amplified by media attention, even when some of those cases might not even be related to the trend. For example, as The New York Times pointed out this weekend, one of the attacks that’s most played by national news outlets doesn’t appear to fit the narrative:
I wonder if National Review will give Derbyshire an apology.