The media made a bad situation even worse
At a time when serious people are calling for calm and reconciliation, The Wall Street Journal’s failure to follow the most basic rules of good journalism made America less safe.
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of right wing propagandist Charlie Kirk, America was bracing for trouble. A right-wing firestorm was growing, with calls to arms, threats of retribution, and a rush to blame anyone and everyone on the left.
The right’s latest moral panic — the one about trans people — provided a convenient target for their rage.
While wiser voices on the left and the right decried political violence, the demand for retribution only grew. Donald Trump himself said the left was responsible for terrorism in America.
Into that dangerous mix of rage and retribution, the Journal lobbed a grenade.
It was less than 24 hours after shooting (when the shooter was still at large and fear and anger were at their peak that the Wall Street Journal posted a story linking the shooting to what it called trans ideology.
On its website and across social media the headline read: Early Bulletin Said Ammunition in Kirk Shooting Engraved With Transgender, Antifascist Ideology.
The story quoted anonymous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms sources describing some of the markings on bullet casings thought to be used by Kirk’s assailant.
Had the Journal prioritized journalism over sensationalism it would have waited to verify this incendiary story. Had it weighed for a nanosecond the damage to our country that such a headline might cause, it would have dug a little deeper. Instead the Journal acted with reckless disregard for actual journalism and instead fed right wing anger and moral panic.
Even before the Journal published, voices on the right were calling for violence against the left. For reasons tied more to ideology than to any actual facts about the shooting, many in the MAGA world were certain that the shooter could only be a transgender person. The Journal story was the confirmation they were looking for, and soon MAGA became enraged about a non-existent transgender assassin.
Just hours after the WSJ story broke, former Fox host Megyn Kelly opened her video podcast on Thursday afternoon with a breathless, angry anti-trans rant. Calls for violence grew as the WSJ ‘scoop’ spread across our media ecosystem. Noted anti-trans lawmaker, Republican Nancy Mace, found the first available camera to spout more transphobic attacks. All linked to supposed trans violence and <q>the left</q> generally.
The consequences were immediate. Bomb threats emptied the DC headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and disrupted multiple historically black colleges.
As is the case with many right wing conspiracy theories, the trans bullet-case markings
story first bubbled up with a post on Twitter by right-wing pundit Steven Crowder. His post that purports to show a screen shot of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF) document in question has now been shared nearly 20K times. Surely, the editors at the Wall Street Journal would have known to check their sources, and dig deeper into facts rather than follow Crowder’s lead. Instead, the Journal’s version legitimized the story and gave it legs.
News outlets like the Daily Beast and many right-wing media outlets others reported about the WSJ report. None had any extra information, none had any actual facts. It was copy/paste for clicks. Meanwhile, on social media it went viral.
Mother Jones, in a good timeline piece on the inflammatory WSJ story, reports that the Journal’s breaking news post on Twitter got “more than 11 million impressions.” A similar social post on Bluesky was shared nearly 2K times.
News organizations around the world forgot their duty to check sources and verify facts, opting instead to push their own flammable headlines into the raging fire.
The story was false.
Yes, there were bullet casings. But the ATF analysis about a transgender link was at best a guess, and at worst an intentional effort to further inflame passions. The authorities later cautioned the public not to put stock in their own early analysis.
By then it was too late. Even now, after learning that the bullet casings are actually covered in internet- and gamer-speak, many, including Megyn Kelly, continue to invent ways to link Kirk’s killing to the transgender community.
But verifiable facts should matter to the Wall Street Journal. Despite being owned by Rupert Murdoch, but the Journal itself has a long history as a credible news outlet. In this case, the Journal not only rushed to publish a dangerous falsehood, it subsequently failed to adequately correct the error.
The first fact check on the the Journal’s questionable reporting came from reporters at the New York Times who pointed out:
A senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation cautioned that the report had not been verified by A.T.F. analysts, did not match other summaries of the evidence and might turn out to have been misread or misinterpreted. In fast-moving investigations, such status reports are not made public because they often contain a mixture of accurate and inaccurate information.
Despite that fact check, The Wall Street Journal was slow to update its story. At first, it simply added, some sources urge caution
to the headline, which read on Friday: Early Bulletin Said Ammunition in Kirk Shooting Engraved With Transgender, Antifascist Ideology; Some Sources Urge Caution.
That’s a very odd headline. What sources? The original story quoted ATF sources. Were these new sources also at the ATF?
The meaning is unclear, and the original version still stands as the one the Journal backs, though now with some indication that maybe not everyone agrees.
Then came a second update and Journal editor’s note that reads in part: Justice Department officials later urged caution about the bulletin by the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, saying it may not accurately reflect the messages on the ammunition.
So now the Justice Department is telling us that ATF might have released a misleading bulletin? Isn’t ATF part of the Justice Department? Still, even after this caution the Journal did not retract its story – a story based entirely on a now discredited ATF bulletin and where no evidence existed to support its incendiary conclusion.
It now appears that the Journal’s viral X post with the original breaking news story has been deleted. Over at Bluesky, the original incorrect post is still up with an added editors note that has been seen by far fewer people than the original post.
Many critics have called out the sloppy reporting and inadequate response, including transgender writer Charlotte Clymer who noted:
The Wall Street Journal would be doing an important act of journalism in the aftermath of their irresponsible reporting to find out how exactly their sources “mistakenly” interpreted the ammunition to have trans-related symbols. Because I gotta be honest: I’m not buying that it was a mistake. I’m not buying that law enforcement officials looked at a series of arrows and thought they were trans-related. I’m not buying that law enforcement officials looked at standard manufacturer markings on a bullet and somehow thought they were trans-related. This was intentional on the part of the specific law enforcement official(s) who were initially involved. They were trying to pin this on trans people. The Wall Street Journal needs to examine their own process for reporting that deeply irresponsible story and question why they were so embarrassingly had by their sources.
Clymer is not alone in her critique of the Journal’s shoddy reporting. Nor is the Journal the only news outlet making serious errors on the Kirk story.
The Guardian has now retracted a story that fed into the right wing propaganda about the shooting suspect’s political affiliations. Media critic Justin Baragona wrote: The Guardian has now taken down the quotes from the supposed high school friend of Tyler Robinson who said he was a “leftist” after the source called them back and said they “could not accurately remember details of their relationship.
Mississippi Free Press Editor Donna Ladd is completely correct when she notes: National media, even the better outlets, are at their absolute worst rushing for scoops during a crisis, such as this one.
Getting the story right, nailing down the facts, checking and double checking sourcing, and ignoring the rush to be first are core journalism values. Milo Vassallo of The Media and Democracy Project also questions why the press is labeling Kirk a conservative instead of far-right. He says that label democracy-washes
Kirk’s far right ideology.
Editors have contributed to the shifting baselines of the meaning of the word
he added.conservative
. George HW Bush was a conservative
— but gradually over decades the word has become a Trojan horse to also include the far-right agenda,
Of course, there are mounting questions and criticisms about the general tone of much of the Kirk murder coverage including how many prominent pundits and news stories seem to be downplaying, if not ignoring Kirk’s incendiary rhetoric.
Mainstream pundits have instantly sanitized and ignored Charlie Kirk’s core political project and its impacts. He has been remembered by the mainstream press as someone they merely disagreed with, a debate me-guy whose words and actions had zero consequences,
journalist Jason Koebler of 404 Media weighed in.
Koebler’s piece is a direct rebuke of New York Times columnist Ezra Klein who wrote a somewhat glowing op-ed about Kirk’s campus debates without bothering to mention any of the vile, bigoted things Kirk himself proudly said with some frequency. It does no one any good for Kirk’s life to be sane-washed or for reporters to rush to publish unverified information. It seems far too many people need to be reminded of that.
Tone aside, The Wall Street Journal failed America this week.
It did not check its facts.
It did not dig into a story.
It rushed to publish incendiary accusations at a dangerous moment.
The damage to America and to the publication’s reputation will be lasting.
Jennifer Schulze is longtime local TV news exec, reporter & producer with a few things to say about the news. Find Schulze on Bluesky at @NewsJennifer and on Substack at Indistinct Chatter.
This is analysis. It looks at a situation or trend through facts, figures, public reactions, and expert response.
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