The lie about Sicknick was that he was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.
Do you know what a lie is? Was it a lie when law enforcement speculated that was his cause of death?
CBS, BuzzFeed, NBC, Politico, USA Today, NPR, and WSJ stories mentioned that he died many hours after leaving, most provided exact times.
I gave up after those because it seems this narrative about the truth being buried isn’t turning out to be true.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210108182531mp_/https://www.cn...
Scroll down about three–quarters of the way to find it; the link doesn’t go to just a single article.
“Officer Sicknick was injured while physically engaging with the rioters and collapsed after returning to his division office. "He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries,"”
So it does say that he collapsed in his office, but not that it was 8 hours later, that he walked himself back to his office, nor that he died the next day. It then pads the paragraph out with “Officer Sicknick joined the USCP in July 2008, and most recently served in the Department's First Responder's Unit.”, which is irrelevant information.
I just clicked on the first headline I saw about the “5 deaths”. Maybe there are a dozen others that have more details, but this summary that leaves out everything important was the easiest to find.
“He Dreamed of Being a Police Officer, Then Was Killed by a Pro-Trump Mob”
https://web.archive.org/web/20210109011156/https://www.nytim...
“Then on Wednesday, pro-Trump rioters attacked that citadel of democracy, overpowered Mr. Sicknick, 42, and struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials. With a bloody gash in his head, Mr. Sicknick was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support. He died on Thursday evening.”
That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Surely the hospital could have confirmed or denied that he was bleeding from a head wound when admitted, if they had asked. After all, they claim to have known that he was on life support, so surely they must have asked somebody. Or they could have found out that he was admitted 8 hours later. More likely they just made things up.
Also I don’t understand where the lie was? Was it unreasonable to initially report that an officer who died following the chaos had injuries from the event?
It’s fair to criticize the breathless coverage, but isn’t calling it a lie that served its purpose a bit much?
The correction that is supposedly being buried is on the top of Apple News, WaPo and on the front of the NYT.