On
Friday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez revisited a story he did on
Tuesday where he forwarded Islamic group CAIR's publicity stunt about a
Virginia license plate that apparently contained racist messages. The
Washington Post, as well, updated their story on Friday, pointing to the
driver's apparent Facebook page, which contained white supremacist
messages, but CNN was unable to confirm their report.
Both news agencies initially jumped on CAIR's admitted speculation [1] about the pickup
truck's license plate numbers, which they claimed represented a slogan
from a deceased white supremacist leader, and numbers which translated
as "Heil Hitler." Brigid Schulte of the Post broke the controversy in her April 22 story [2], which
only presented the Islamic advocacy group's side of the story (possibly
because of privacy rules in Virginia). Sanchez did the same in his Tuesday segment [3].
Schulte followed through with an article on Thursday [4], after the owner of the
truck, Douglas Story, contacted The Washington Post to claim that the
numbers actually represented his favorite NASCAR drivers, Tony Stewart
and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who race under those respective numbers. Story
was forced to get a new license plate after the Virginia DMV recalled
his plate.
The following afternoon, the CNN anchor devoted a five-minute segment
to the controversy (CNN.com has the full transcript here [5]), which began 43 minutes into
the 3 pm Eastern hour. He brought on correspondent Brooke Baldwin, who
had actually talked to Mr. Story, and also gave additional details which
the Post's Schulte reported online earlier in the day [6] about the truck
driver's apparent Facebook page.
SANCHEZ: You know, it's kind of like a ping-pong match- this story. BALDWIN: Back and forth.
SANCHEZ: When I told it the other day- well, part of it is, too- you know- look, I don't know enough about- you know, NASCAR, to have recognized those two numbers and questioned it at the time that we did the story....We reported what CAIR had alleged....about the story. Now, he's coming back and saying- no, CAIR is wrong. But now, you're here to tell us The Washington Post has been diligently reporting on this. We've tried to do some independent reporting. We've spoken to him. What is his name?
BALDWIN: Douglas Story- and you're right, Rick. I mean, it's kind of ping-pong. There's all kinds of bits and pieces. Let me try to sit here and put them all together for you.
SANCHEZ: Okay.
BALDWIN: But right, so you sat here a couple of days ago. You told this guy's story. You showed the back of his car....So, Mr. Story, out of Chantilly, Virginia, has since come forward....He said, hang on a second. This has nothing to do with the Nazis, and everything, as you pointed out- has everything to do with NASCAR....
The Washington Post is now running with the story, saying they have done some digging, and they have said- hey, we found his Facebook page. There are white supremacy messages. We followed up, did our due diligence- you know, talked to him. He said, absolutely not- I have nothing to do with social media- never had a Facebook page. So, he is denying what The Washington Post is reporting....
SANCHEZ: Ok, fine. So we've got- so essentially, we've got a stalemate there.
BALDWIN: Total stalemate.
SANCHEZ: We stop- fine. Now, let's go to the other part, the Facebook page, which apparently, there are references to white supremacist groups.
BALDWIN: 'I'm 100 percent Aryan race- 100 percent white.' But, again, he is saying, 'I don't know what you're talking about, Washington Post. I do not and have never had a Facebook page.'
SANCHEZ: The Washington Post, though, is, in fact, declaratively stating that, in fact, that is his Facebook page, correct?
BALDWIN: Correct.
SANCHEZ: They're a pretty reputable organization, right?
BALDWIN: They are.
SANCHEZ: But he's coming back. Now, we had him on the phone, and I understand he called Janelle, one of our staffers-
BALDWIN: Right.
SANCHEZ: One of our bookers, and abruptly canceled the interview that he was going to do with you and I.
BALDWIN: I was bummed out. He totally canceled. In fact, I talked to Janelle earlier. He hung up on her, and we had repeatedly followed up and called him back. And finally, we got a hold of him today to ask him about what The Washington Post was reporting- and so we did at least talk to him today- and that, again, is when he said, 'I don't know what they're talking about.'
In her online article on Friday, Schulte ran several quotes from Mr.
Story where he described himself as an admirer of former Klan member
David Duke and as a "white nationalist" (CAIR itself highlighted the
Post story in an e-mail on Friday [7]). When the Washington Post writer
asked him about the apparent Facebook page, "he continued to maintain
that his license plate message had nothing to with racism. He stuck by
his NASCAR story. 'Southern white men. Southern white sport. What else
needs to be said?' he said." This doesn't square completely, to say the
least, with CNN's interview of the truck driver, where he denied ever
having a Facebook page in the first place.
Given the conflicting accounts all around between CNN, The Washington
Post, CAIR, and Mr. Story, there are only a few things that are clear.
Story once had a license plate that had the numbers "14" and "88" on it,
which was recalled by the Commonwealth of Virginia. His pickup truck
has a Confederate flag on it, and up until recently, had the message,
"Everything I ever needed to know about Islam I learned on 9/11," on the
tailgate. And CAIR conducted a publicity stunt where they used stereotypes about pickup truck owners [2] to go
after Story and his anti-Islamic message, which both CNN and the
Washington Post latched on to initially without obtaining Story's side
of the controversy.
-Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You
can follow him on Twitter here [8].