On Saturday, a protest to “stop the Islamic takeover of New York City” took place near Gracie Mansion, the residence of New York City’s mayor. The protest was led by a man named Jake Lang, a right-wing activist and provocateur. A group of counter-protestors were also present. One of the counter-protesters, identified as Emir Balat, lit and threw an IED (improvised explosive device)—a jar wrapped in black tape with nuts, bolts, and screws inside, with an external fuse—at the protesters. Witnesses saw flames as it traveled through the air. The IED extinguished when it landed. Had it exploded as intended, the metal pieces inside would have burst forth as shrapnel, inflicting maximum carnage. Balat then ran down the street and received a second device from another man, lit that device, but dropped it as he ran down the street.
These facts—plus that a protester used pepper spray against counter-protesters—were established yesterday, and disclosed in a briefing by the NYPD Commissioner. (The one exception is that initially it was unclear whether the items were dummy bombs or real. Today the Commissioner confirmed the devices were not hoaxes or smoke bombs, but actual IEDs.)
Yet media coverage of the incident gave the impression that the anti-Islam protesters threw the IED. Here is the NYT headline (which I “corrected” in my image at the top of this post):
Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near Mayor’s House.
The formulation “thrown at protest” is deliberately ambiguous, leading readers to believe the protesters threw the IED. The subhead “Six people were arrested after anti-Islamic protesters led by the right-wing activist Jake Lang clashed with counterprotesters near Gracie Mansion” adds context about a “clash” with counterprotesters, but even after reading that, at best, readers might be confused about who threw the IED.
NBC handled the incident similarly. Their tweet was posted at 7:30pm yesterday, after the Police Commissioner’s briefing, when details about who threw the IEDs was already known.
Notice the language : “suspicious devices found outside Gracie Mansion, home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, during anti-Islam rally and counterprotest.” The devices were simply “found” near Gracie Mansion, not thrown by Balat.
ABC was similarly vague.
Below is the lede in an article in Gothamist, an online publication owned and operated by New York Public Radio (WNYC):
A few paragraphs later we get to the counterprotesters, but attribution of the bomb thrower is avoided.
The device thrown during Saturday’s protest was ignited during a confrontation between roughly 20 supporters of far-right activist Jake Lang and about 125 counterprotesters gathered near the mayor’s official residence.
The article is an exercise in linguistic contortion, the two reporters writing everything possible without saying that it was a counterprotester who threw the IED.
Even the caption under the image of the suspect simply refers to “a man” throwing the explosive during the protest.
As most people know, the standard for news articles is the Five Ws — Who, What, When, Where, and Why. The news outlets deliberately did not inform audiences up front the “who,” even though that information was known. The NYT ultimately got to this information in its article’s fifth paragraph, and Gothamist eventually gave the names of the suspects but assiduously did not say they were counterprotesters.
Given that the “anti-Islam” nature of the protest was given prominence in the headlines, it’s also relevant that the Times and many other outlets did not include mention that as Balat was detained he appeared to say “Allahu Akbar,” a Muslim declaration of faith. The video evidence of him saying this is also corroborated by an AFP reporter on scene.
Today, Mayor Mamdani posted about the incident on X. Like the media reports, he highlighted the bigoted characteristics of the protestors, but did not mention who threw the IEDs, by far the most newsworthy component of the story.
The mayor overtly gives the impression that the Jake Lang protesters were the ones who threw the explosive device. There is no other way to read his post because it doesn’t even mention that there were counter-protesters present. He obviously knows the truth about who intended to blow people up, but he chose to purposely obscure this and mislead the public.
Below is a corrected version of his tweet:
This is how narratives are created in the public conversation. People not following the incident closely, and just glancing at headlines, may likely come away with the impression that the Jake Lang group were the ones who threw explosives. While Lang’s politics and tactics may be odious, being wrong or mean or bigoted is protected by the first amendment as free speech. Throwing bombs is not. Fortunately, the explosives failed.
It’s important to document these purposeful drivers of false narratives - thank you!
Welcome back!