Newsrooms have wasted no time assigning blame to conspiracy theorists and fake news websites for a man who opened fire this weekend at a pizzeria in Washington, D.C.
Though the press isn’t wrong to highlight the shooter’s apparent inspiration, as the gunman clearly seems to have been motivated by the lunatic fringe and hoax reports, the incident this weekend underscores media’s inconsistent handling of these types of events.
Compare today’s media coverage to when a deranged man tried to shoot up the Family Research Council in 2012. Four years ago, the press was much shier about assigning blame, even after the would-be shooter revealed he wanted to punish the FRC for its opposition to same-sex marriage.
On Sunday, an armed 28-year-old man, Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, N.C., marched into Comet Ping Pong, pointed his rifle at restaurant employees and fired at least one round. Luckily, no one was hurt. After Welch surrendered to the police, he reportedly told authorities he was “self-investigating” a conspiracy alleging that the eatery quietly operated a child sex ring on the side.
Bizarre stories alleging pizzerias act as fronts for some massive international child sex ring can be traced back to a thread that appeared first on the imageboard website 4Chan. The rumor was picked up later by the conspiracy theory website InfoWars.com, which then brought the story to a much larger audience.
Media have underscored that the North Carolina gunman appeared to be motivated by fake news websites, and many in the press have blamed conspiracy theorists, including Alex Jones, for inspiring violence.
“Man fires rifle in D.C. restaurant at center of fake-news conspiracy theories,” read a USA Today headline.
The Guardian’s headline read, “Washington gunman motivated by fake news ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy.”
“Fake News Purveyors and Trump’s Conspiracy Theorists Have Real World Consequences,” read one Daily Beast headline.
The left-wing news blog ThinkProgress published a story titled, “Trump made fake news mainstream. Now people’s lives are at risk.”
And so on.
Again, the press isn’t wrong to highlight what appears to have been Welch’s chief motivation in the shooting incident this weekend. But the coverage does highlight media’s inconsistent approach to these sort of events.
In a similar incident years earlier, a would-be mass shooter walked through the doors of the Family Research Council’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., with the intention of killing everyone in sight.
Luckily, the gunman, Floyd Lee Corkins II of Herndon, Va., was wrestled to the ground by a quick-thinking security guard and arrested by responding police officers.
Though the botched FRC shooting initially earned a fair amount of media coverage, the story slipped quickly into obscurity even after Corkins revealed he was inspired by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The would-be gunman told authorities he got the idea to shoot up the FRC from the SLPC’s “Hate Map,” which details the whereabouts of “extremist” groups in the United States, including organizations that oppose same-sex marriage. Unlike the press’ coverage of Sunday’s pizzeria shooting, there were few news stories highlighting Corkins’ reported inspiration. There were even fewer voices in media blaming the SPLC outright for Corkins’ attempt at a mass shooting event.
In fact, Corkins’ comments to law enforcement officials did nothing to diminish SPLC’s standing in media. The group’s employees continue to appear regularly on cable news networks to comment on “extremist” groups in the United States.
Whether it’s fair to blame individuals or organizations for the actions of crazy people is the subject for another debate. In the meantime, though, it would be nice if media applied some measure of consistency to its coverage of events involving shooters and would-be killers.
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This post has been updated.
