Rhino Times provides cover for fear mongering deception

GREENSBORO, NC --- Earlier this week, parents of students at Eastern Guilford High School held a public meeting about violence at the school and duped the public and the media by showing a video they claimed was of a fight at Eastern. It was not. It was of a fight at an apartment complex seventeen miles away and a year ago. How did Rhinoceros Times reporter Paul Clark report the video? Like this:

[Eastern parent Jon] Dowell kicked off Monday's meeting with an evolved version of the video that showed two fights, one clearly at Eastern.

"One clearly at Eastern." And the other?

While one of the videos may have been clearly shot at Eastern, Clark leaves doubt about the other: maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. It was not, but Rhino readers will have no idea that the disgruntled organizers of the meeting, for some reason, duped the public.

The remainder of Clark's article describes parents' reactions to the videos, and of course they are perturbed, but by a false premise left concealed by the reporter. The Rhino could have contributed to a proper understanding; a realignment of people's attention towards the facts and away from fakery. Instead, the Rhino provided cover for people who used deception to gin up fears for support of their "calls to stop busing gang-related inner-city kids to Eastern."