The Star Tribune has been observing the fifth anniversary of the death of George Floyd with a series that is intended to produce a mind meld among its readers. Yesterday Star Tribune reporters Andy Mannix and Liz Sawyer attacked Liz Collin, Alpha News, and The Fall of Minneapolis in “George Floyd’s killing unified Americans in condemning injustice” (“The narrative is being rewritten”) and “Fact checking right-wing media’s claims about George Floyd and Derek Chauvin.” The Star Tribune asserts its control over “the narrative” in a personal, vindictive, high-handed, and dishonest manner. Speaking of “narrative,” it should be noted, the Star Tribune allows no comments on the stories.
Attorney Chris Madel represented Liz and Alpha News in the defamation lawsuit brought by Minneapolis police department deputy chief Katie Blackwell over the portrayal of her testimony in The Fall of Minneapolis. The lawsuit resulted in the complete vindication of Liz and Alpha News for the truth of the matter reported, but you would never know it from reading Mannix and Sawyer. Their treatment of the lawsuit is egregious.
Mannix, by the way, is the Star Tribune reporter who violated grand jury secrecy to report that federal indictments then under seal had been handed up against the four officers in the Floyd case. Mannix was an accessory to what Judge Schiltz thought was a federal crime — the leak of sealed grand jury information — perpetrator unknown.
One would never have known the impropriety to which Mannix was a party from reading Mannix’s story based on the leak. He was lost in the ecstasy of reporting the indictments a few days ahead of their unsealing. I wrote about this on Power Line most recently in the third part of my series on Keith Ellison’s Break The Wheel memoir.
Chris Madel now talks back to Mannix and Sawyer in a long thread on X that I have unrolled HERE. Please check it out. Chris’s thread can also be accessed on X by clicking on the post below.
The whole 26-part thread is worth reading. On the point of the lawsuit in which Chris represented us, a point grossly misrepresented by Mannix and Sawyer, see posts 11-23 in Chris’s thread.
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THREAD:
The @startribune did a story today about George Floyd and alleged “rewriting” of history by, among others, @lizcollin. Let’s look at the two reporters who wrote it, Andy Mannix (@andrewmannix) and Liz Sawyer (@ByLizSawyer), and how fair that story is.— Chris Madel (@CWMadel) May 21, 2025
