There aren’t many facts. However, there is a flood of conclusions.
So it goes in many corners of the news media and among their frequent commentators in the wake of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
Authorities have not determined why a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man tried to kill the former president — and now that the shooter is dead, they may never know. That does not stop media figures and politicians from speculating heavily. President Joe Biden, the Democrats and the left-wing media have all been blamed, without any evidence. Then there’s the ever-popular, amorphous, definition-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder target: “they.”
“They tried to lock him up, and now they tried to kill him,” said Fox News contributor Jacob Chaffetz.
All in all, it’s a reflection of what breaking news reporting in a modern media world is built for: drawing sharp lines, leaning on epic narratives, and leaving little room for middle ground or sometimes even the truth.
Some claims were specific. “The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, Pennsylvania, should immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for incitement to murder,” U.S. Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia wrote on social media. “The Democrats and the media are responsible for every drop of blood,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance wrote, two days before he was selected as Trump’s running mate. “That rhetoric led directly to the attempted assassination of President Trump.”
Talk show host Erick Erickson blamed MSNBC. “These people wanted Donald Trump killed,” he said on his radio show. “You can’t tell me this isn’t the case.” Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, said that “Democrats have been inviting this for quite some time.”
Many news organizations have reported clues about attempted murderer Thomas Matthew Crooks — party registration, political donations, lawn signs at his home — but refrained from drawing conclusions.
For many politicians and idiosyncratic media figures, there is little reason to hold back, says Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt University and author of “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.”
“Because there is so much competition in the world of right-wing radio and podcasts, the pressure to be the loudest, most exaggerated and angriest voice is even greater than in any previous era,” Hemmer said.
They serve a specific audience, and “they don’t believe there will be forgiveness among that audience if they don’t serve them excellently,” says Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a trade magazine for political talk shows.
Blaming Democrats, Hemmer said, also weakens that party’s line of attack against Trump in the current presidential campaign — accusing the Republican of inciting political violence in the past, such as before the Capitol riot. 6 January.
After the assassination attempt, Biden called for more unity and to cool down the political rhetoric. But the president remained vulnerable after his debate with Trump, when he told donors it was “time to hit Trump” for untrue statements on stage. The word choice sounds damning in retrospect, and Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt on Monday that saying it was a mistake was a mistake.
Speculative rhetoric after a tragedy is neither new nor one-sided. Right-wing media and political figures were quickly excoriated after the 2011 shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. The New York Times apologized and was later sued for defamation for falsely linking it to the Giffords by blasting a map issued by former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin that put Democratic-controlled congressional districts in the electoral crosshairs .
The anger toward mainstream or liberal media figures was palpable after the Trump shooting; a supporter at the Pennsylvania rally gave a middle finger to television cameras and watched as Trump was chased away by Secret Service agents.
Fueling that anger is easy — and for some news operations, lucrative. There are few guardrails against indulging in such speculation, Hemmer said.
“The only effective guardrail is high-damage lawsuits,” she said, such as Fox News faced before settling with Dominion Voting Systems over claims filed after the 2020 presidential election, or jury verdicts against Alex Jones over his false claims about Sandy Hook Elementary School. shooting in Connecticut.
But in those cases, they involved very specific allegations, not a blanket statement of ‘you caused this,'” Hemmer said.
“They don’t have to be specific,” she said. “All you need is the ‘them’ and they will do all the work.”
Politicians are more likely to engage in accusations and speculation than in the past because those who do so successfully, like Greene, have used it to raise money, Hemmer said. Party leaders have less power to stop them as the threat of withholding campaign donations becomes increasingly toothless, she said.
“The media and politicians absolutely support each other,” Hemmer said. “Moreover, the boundaries between the two roles have eroded so much that it is no surprise that office holders and media personalities say the same things.”
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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him up http://twitter.com/dbauder
