Any shooting is tragic, regardless of circumstances, motive, or any other issues. Lives are cut short, needlessly, leaving sadness and anger for families and communities. The latest Colorado shooting was at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs where five poor souls lost their lives.
Instead of reporting the story and allowing everyone to grieve these unnecessary deaths, big media was quick to pounce, politicizing the story, castigating their political enemies, without knowing or waiting to learn the facts of the story.
Several days after the shooting, before anything was known about the perpetrator or his motive, USA Today presumed to have all the answers, “Colorado Springs shooting is what comes from anti-LGBTQ hate.” They went further to blame Republicans, “For months in America we’ve heard hideous anti-LGBTQ rhetoric coming from one side of the political aisle.”
The Denver Post was more specific, blaming a Colorado member of Congress in their editorial, “We’re looking at you, Lauren Boebert. Stop the intolerance.”
The implication was that the Club Q shooter was some MAGA hat wearing Trump supporting conservative Republican. This isn’t journalism, instead it’s sensationalism. Two major newspapers, not knowing the facts, presumed to know the who, what, where, when, and why of basic journalism when they were only projecting their biases instead.
Once the shooter was identified, his lawyers released a statement, “Anderson Aldrich is nonbinary, They use they/them pronouns, and for the purposes of all formal filings, will be addressed as Mx. Aldrich.”
So much for the media narrative of right-wing, Q-anon, MAGA homophobia causing the shooting. After showing little concern for the victims, the media’s fantasy balloon popped and they are ready to move on to some other story, looking for another opportunity to use tragedy as a political weapon. But they accomplished their mission of setting the narrative before the truth came out.
Instead, the shooter is a mentally ill young adult with a horrific family life including chronic bullying, a drug addicted porn actor father, a drug addicted mother, and himself with borderline personality disorder.
Perhaps the media could focus on how Colorado’s myriad gun control laws failed, including Colorado’s “red flag” law. Weren’t these laws supposed to stop such acts? Instead, the Denver Post wants to blame a Republican member of Congress for the shooting.
This is not an isolated incident. Remember NASCAR driver Bubba Watson claiming someone hung a noose in his garage? The FBI took a pause from spying on President Trump to send 17 agents to investigate the “noose” which was simply a garage pull handle. But the media was quick to call this a racially motivated hate crime.
Then there was the “hands up, don’t shoot” myth, perpetuated by the media and professional sports for months until facts prevailed. The Washington Post had to reluctantly admit, after fanning the lie, “Hands up, don’t shoot did not happen in Ferguson.”
Yet the damage was done. A false narrative was created, leading to protests, riots, and property damage, all based on a lie, but one that fit the media’s political preferences.
The Club Q shooting is just another example of our local and national media playing, “ready-fire-aim”, blasting out a lie before knowing the facts. This is media malpractice. Where are the apologies?
Is it any wonder trust in media is an all-time low?