Viral Morgan Freeman Statement is a Fake Thus Exposing the Flaws in The Media by Using the Media.

If you are on facebook then there is almost no doubt that you have seen a picture of Morgan Freeman along with a lengthy quote that he allegedly said regarding the tragedy in Newtown Conn.

Here is the quote in its entirety,

The remark floating around online that was said to be from Freeman stated the following: “You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why. It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.”

CNN’s article says that if the body count ‘holds up,’ this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next. You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem.”

This quote spread on the internet like herpes in high school.   Republican’s loved it because it was a black man speaking out against gun control.  People in general loved it because in part, its message was right on the button.  The problem is, it wasn’t from Morgan Freeman.  A rep for freeman released a statement to E! News,

Morgan neither made statements or posted those statements. We are trying to find out who did, but they did not originate from him,”

Well played.  Whoever is responsible for the statement got their point across many times over, and did so by using the one thing they were speaking against.  The media!