The Independent falsely claimed that Kyle Rittenhouse shot three black men after he was acquitted of all charges Friday for shooting three white men in self-defense during the August 2020 Kenosha, Wisconsin, riots.
“Full story: Teenager who shot three black men with rifle found not guilty on all charges,” the Independent wrote in a bullet point on the main page of its website Friday. The error was quickly corrected, although the outlet did not publicly acknowledge or apologize for the mistake.
The Independent then altered the page to correct the error, although the article linked to in the bullet did not include a correction note from the editor to acknowledge the mistake. The article’s SEO description still incorrectly stated that the three men who were shot were black as of Friday afternoon, but has since been updated.
The police shooting of Jacob Blake sparked the 2020 Kenosha riots. The current version of the Independent article mentioned that Blake was black, but did not acknowledge that the men Rittenhouse shot were white.
Rittenhouse’s trial polarized Americans along political lines, with numerous politicians and celebrities calling his acquittal racist.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald said that the same error had occurred in numerous Brazilian newspapers as well as in a Dutch publication Friday.
“The largest media outlets in Brazil this week had to retract their articles on the Rittenhouse case because they claimed it was a case of a white youth having shot and killed two black men. They got this from the US media, which deliberately cultivated this false narrative,” Greenwald wrote.
Rittenhouse was acquitted on all counts Friday after three days of deliberations in the widely publicized trial.
The Independent did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Read the full story at the Daily Caller News Foundation