NBA Star Charles Barkley Criticizes Media Coverage of Ferguson

Barkley: 'the media love race stories.'

Outspoken Former NBA Star Charles Barkley called out the media for “jumping to conclusions in the Michael Brown shooting, because the media love race stories.” Barkley made these comments on Tuesday in a radio interview with Mike Missanelli on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia,      

When asked about the Ferguson decision, and why “Black America” doesn’t trust the ruling, Barkley said that “the true story came out from the grand jury testimony," adding that he was made aware of "key forensic evidence, and several black witnesses that supported Officer Darren Wilson’s story for the first time Monday Night. I can’t believe anything I hear on television anymore. And, that’s why I don’t like talking about race issues with the media anymore, because they (the media) love this stuff, and lead people to jump to conclusions. The media shouldn’t do that. They never do that when black people kill each other”   

Barkley also praised the police saying “we have to be really careful with the cops, because if it wasn’t for the cops we would be living in the Wild, Wild West in our neighborhoods. We can’t pick out certain incidentals that don’t go our way and act like the cops are all bad. Do you know how bad some of these neighborhoods would be without the cops?” 

Barkley also had thoughts on the people that participated in looting after the decision, “they aren’t real black people. They are all scumbags.” 

Before the interview was over Barkley criticized Obama for his “lack” of action on ISIS: “Obama needs to put some real bodies over there and start shooting those damn guys from ISIS. We can’t wait any longer, those guys are getting out of hand. We can’t just bomb them from a distance, they have to put boots on the ground, they have to go over there and shoot them. We need to put some bodies on the ground and shoot them dead.”

Barkley also reveled he would vote for Governor Chris Christie in the 2016 presidential election.  

The full interview can be heard here: http://www.975thefanatic.com/teams/sixers/2014/11/25/charles-barkley-joins-mikey-miss---check-out-the-interview

— Geoff Harbaugh is Writer at the Media Research Center. Follow Geoff Harbaugh on Twitter.