Then more videos surfaced on Sunday; videos that showed some appalling insults from the Black Israelite group, aimed at the young Catholics; some tone deafness on the part of some of the Natives present and a group of clueless, often confused, teen-agers who got blamed for it all.

…

The media — some of our nation’s top newsrooms — really got played on this one, early on. You had some bizarre black activists who were the worst players in this whole episode, but who walked away without anyone criticizing them. Then there were the white Catholic kids who got vilified by everyone until inconvenient truths emerged. And then you had a Native elder who got to spin the narrative in front of the TV cameras until video showed that his version wasn’t quite the whole story.

Veteran religion reporter (including at Washington Post) Julia Duin.

I and others got played by the media on this one, I at least trusting the reports because they were from mainstream media, not, say, Buzzfeed. Mea culpa! Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!