It started with a chyron. In August 2020, CNN national correspondent Omar Jimenez stood in front of a literal inferno in Kenosha, Wisconsin, while the text at the bottom of the screen described the scene as "fiery but mostly peaceful" protests. It was a moment of peak cognitive dissonance. You had the visual of a building being consumed by flames—the professional equipment of a car dealership turning into a skeleton of melted steel—juxtaposed against a caption that felt like it was gaslighting the viewer.
The internet didn't miss it. Within minutes, it became a shorthand for perceived media bias, a viral punchline that survived long after the smoke cleared from the 2020 racial justice protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
But looking back now, the phrase "fiery but mostly peaceful" represents more than just a funny meme or a cable news blunder. It’s actually a window into how we process political violence, how data is used to frame narratives, and why the public’s trust in journalism hit a historic floor during that summer.
The Kenosha Context: Where the Phrase Was Born
Context matters. Kenosha was a powder keg. Following the shooting of Jacob Blake, the city saw several nights of intense civil unrest. When Jimenez was reporting live, he was trying to capture the nuance that thousands of people were marching without throwing a single rock, while a smaller subset of individuals was, well, setting things on fire.
He was technically correct. Most people there were not arsonists. However, the optics were disastrous. Journalism is a visual medium. When your background is a raging structure fire, using the word "peaceful" in the same sentence is like describing a sinking ship as "mostly dry."
The Data Behind the "Mostly Peaceful" Claim
Was the claim factually grounded? Actually, yes. Harvard’s Erica Chenoweth and researchers from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) analyzed over 7,750 demonstrations across 2,400 locations in the U.S. during the summer of 2020. Their findings were stark: about 93% of the protests involved no serious violence or property damage.
The 7% that did, however, were catastrophic.
In Kenosha alone, the damage was estimated at $50 million. Over 100 businesses were damaged or destroyed. So, while the "mostly" part of "fiery but mostly peaceful" was statistically accurate, it felt dismissive to the people whose livelihoods were currently turning into ash on live television. This is the gap where the meme lives. It’s the space between macro-level statistics and micro-level reality.
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Why This Meme Became a Cultural Milestone
Why are we still talking about this? It’s because the phrase became a symbol of "semantic
overload."
We’ve all seen it. A political group wants to protect a narrative, so they use language that softens the blow of uncomfortable facts. Conservatives used the phrase to argue that the mainstream media was acting as a PR wing for rioters. Liberals argued that focusing only on the fires ignored the legitimate grievances of a massive social movement.
Honestly, both sides were using the phrase as a weapon.
The meme evolved. It wasn’t just about Kenosha anymore. People started using "fiery but mostly peaceful" to describe everything from a bad breakup to a literal natural disaster. It became a way to mock anyone perceived as downplaying a crisis. You’ve probably seen the photoshopped images of the Hindenburg disaster or the sinking of the Titanic with that same CNN chyron at the bottom. It’s a classic example of how a single moment of poor editorial judgment can become a permanent stain on a brand’s reputation.
The Media’s Struggle with Nuance
Reporting on civil unrest is a nightmare. I’ve talked to reporters who were on the ground in 2020, and they describe a "fog of war" atmosphere. You have tear gas in your eyes, people screaming, and a producer in your ear demanding a coherent narrative.
The problem with "fiery but mostly peaceful" wasn't that it was a lie; it’s that it was an incomplete truth.
Good journalism should reflect the reality of the person standing on the street corner. If that person sees their neighborhood burning, telling them the protest is "mostly peaceful" feels like an insult. Conversely, if you only show the fire, you're suggesting that the 5,000 people holding candles two blocks away don't exist.
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Lessons from the 1992 LA Riots vs. 2020
If you look back at the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the media coverage was vastly different. There was no attempt to label the events as "mostly" anything. It was framed as a breakdown of social order. By 2020, the language had shifted to "racial justice protests," a term that carried a heavy moral weight.
This shift in terminology is what created the friction.
When you attach a moral "good" to an event—like seeking justice for police brutality—it becomes very difficult for reporters to acknowledge the "bad" elements—like arson—without feeling like they are undermining the cause. The "fiery but mostly peaceful" chyron was an attempt to have it both ways. It tried to acknowledge the destruction while maintaining the moral purity of the movement. It failed.
The Psychological Impact of Narrative Framing
There’s a concept in psychology called "motivated reasoning." Basically, we see what we want to see.
If you already distrusted the BLM movement, that CNN chyron was proof that the media was lying to you. If you supported the movement, you saw the chyron as a necessary correction to the "rioter" narrative being pushed by other outlets.
But for the average person—the "exhausted middle"—it just looked like a mess.
Trust in media has been cratering for decades, but 2020 was a tipping point. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who have "no trust at all" in the media hit record highs following that summer. Phrases like "fiery but mostly peaceful" are a big reason why. They represent a departure from objective observation in favor of narrative management.
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How to Spot "Mostly Peaceful" Style Framing Today
This wasn't a one-off event. We see this kind of framing everywhere now. It’s in how we talk about economic "corrections" that are actually recessions, or "surgical strikes" that involve civilian casualties.
To be a savvy consumer of news, you have to look for the "But."
Whenever a headline uses a qualifying conjunction—like "but," "although," or "despite"—it’s a signal that the writer is trying to pivot your attention away from one fact toward another.
- "The economy is shrinking, but job growth remains steady."
- "The candidate lost the debate, but their base is energized."
- "The protest was fiery, but mostly peaceful."
The information after the "but" is almost always the narrative the outlet wants you to walk away with. The information before the "but" is the inconvenient truth they are forced to acknowledge.
Actionable Steps for Navigating Polarized News
You can't stop the media from using chyrons, but you can change how you process them. If you want to avoid being manipulated by "fiery but mostly peaceful" style reporting, try these tactics:
- Mute the audio and ignore the text. Look at the raw footage. If the footage shows a building on fire, that is a fire. No amount of text can change the chemistry of combustion.
- Compare international sources. Read how the BBC or Al Jazeera covered the same event. Often, outlets outside the U.S. political ecosystem use much more neutral language because they don't have a "side" in our domestic culture wars.
- Check the local news. While national outlets like CNN or Fox News focus on the "grand narrative," local Kenosha or Minneapolis stations were focused on which streets were closed and which shops were looted. The local level is almost always more factual and less performative.
- Acknowledge the 93/7 split. Understand that two things can be true at once. A movement can be overwhelmingly peaceful and contain elements of extreme violence. Refusing to acknowledge one or the other makes you a partisan, not a witness.
The "fiery but mostly peaceful" era of journalism taught us that reality is rarely a clean, single-sentence headline. It’s messy. It’s contradictory. Sometimes, things are exactly as they appear: a fire is a fire, no matter how many peaceful people are standing nearby.
The best way to honor the truth is to stop trying to "mostly" it away. We need to accept the "fiery" and the "peaceful" as separate, concurrent realities. Only then can we actually start talking about how to fix the problems that started the fires in the first place.
Key Takeaways for the Digital Age
- Optics trump statistics: Even if 99% of an event is peaceful, the 1% that burns will define the public perception.
- Narrative management backfires: Attempting to soften a harsh reality often leads to a total loss of credibility.
- The "But" is a red flag: Always pay attention to the qualifying language in news headers; it reveals the editor's bias.
- Data requires context: A "mostly peaceful" statistic is cold comfort to a small business owner watching their shop disappear.
Verify the source. Watch the raw video. Trust your eyes over the chyron. That's the only way to stay sane in a media environment that wants to tell you the fire isn't actually hot.
Next Steps for Deeper Insight:
Research the ACLED 2020 report to see the full breakdown of protest data across the United States. Compare the Kenosha damage assessments from the city government against the initial national news reports to see the delta between breaking news and final reality. Finally, examine the Gallup Trust in Media historical charts to see the direct correlation between 2020 reporting styles and the decline in public confidence.