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  • 2021-11-18 (xsd:date)
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  • Did an MSNBC Producer 'Follow' a Bus Containing Rittenhouse Jurors? (en)
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  • As a Kenosha, Wisconsin, jury deliberated in the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in November 2021, the judge in the case made a dramatic ruling, banning MSNBC from the court for the remainder of the trial. On Nov. 18, Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder announced that noone from MSNBC News will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial, after police officers in the city said they had stopped a producer from the news network who, according to police, said he was acting under orders from a superior to follow a bus carrying jurors away from the courthouse. An excerpted transcript of Schroeder's remarks can be found below, along with a short video: Initially, we issued a rating of Unproven as to the claim that MSNBC reporter James Morrison had followed a bus containing jurors from the trial of Rittenhouse, because concrete evidence was lacking with regard to his actions and motivations. However, on Nov. 30 Kenosha police released bodyworn camera footage of the traffic stop. That video footage clearly demonstrates that Morrison himself admitted to police he had been following the jury bus, and his supervising producer, Irene Byon, effectively admitted the same in a video-recorded phone conversation with police. As a result of this important new evidence, made public for the first time on Nov. 30, we are changing our rating from Unproven to True. The video footage can be watched in full below. An excerpted transcript of the two moments most directly relevant to this fact check can also be read below, and a copy of the Kenosha police field case report is available here. That document was forwarded to Snopes by Kevin Mathewson, who obtained it, and the bodycam footage, after filing a public records request with Kenosha police. In the first exchange, Kenosha Police Officer Jerel Jones-Denson asks Morrison whether he was following the bus containing jurors when he ran a red light — the incident that prompted the traffic stop. Morrison says he was attempting to do what MSNBC's New York office had instructed him to do, and that that was to follow the bus: In the second exchange, Jones-Denson uses Morrison's phone to call Byon, Morrison's supervising producer at MSNBC. Jones-Denson sets the phone to speaker mode, meaning the conversation is audible. While emphasizing that the network did not intend to make contact with any jurors, Byon acknowledged that their intention was to try to see where key players in the trial may be at, while keeping our distance — a de facto admission that Morrison had indeed been instructed to follow the bus in his car, and had been doing just that when he was pulled over. This article has been updated based on new information. The original version was last archived on Nov. 22, 2021. (en)
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