The Media's Rush to Judgment
When sensationalism triumphs over accuracy, we all lose.
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of right-wing provacateur 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 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 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 nonexistent 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 Congresswoman Nancy Mace, found the first available camera to spout more transphobic attacks. All linked to supposed trans violence and the left generally.
The consequences were immediate. Bomb threats emptied the D.C. headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and disrupted multiple Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
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 AFT document in question has now been shared nearly 20,000 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 organizations like the Daily Beast and many right-wing media outlets forgot their own duty to check sources and verify facts, opting instead to basically copy/paste the WSJ story and then push their own flammable headlines into the raging fire.
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 2,000 times.
The story appears to be 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, 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.”
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.
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 editor’s note that has been seen by far fewer people than the original post.
Uproar over WSJ’s debunked piece
Many critics have called out the sloppy reporting and inadequate response, including transgender writer Charlotte Clymer who notes:
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 outlets 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 writes: “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.
Getting the story right, nailing down the facts, checking and double-checking sourcing should be core journalism values but that’s not what we are seeing right now.
"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.”
Milo Vassallo of The Media and Democracy Project says the press is “democracy washing” Kirk by describing him as a conservative instead of an extremist. He told me:
“[U]se of the word ‘conservative’ does not accurately describe the dangerous far-right ideology of Charlie Kirk and his movement..describing Kirk as such will have more people unfamiliar with his agenda — identify with and be more sympathetic to his ideology and lionization.”
Sane-washing Charlie Kirk
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.
Journalist Jason Koebler of 404 Media weighed in:
“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.”
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.At a time when serious people are calling for calm and reconciliation, The Journal’s failure to follow the most basic rules of good journalism made America less safe.
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. She’s on Bluesky at @NewsJennifer and on Substack at Indistinct Chatter.
This piece was originally posted on Equal Access Public Media (EAPM), a nonprofit media org dedicated to making news and newsrooms accessible.
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The rush to "storytelling" without the facts stirred up the hornets' nest. It's hard to get the hornets back in the nest once they are stirred up and mad. Or think of it this way: Once you squeeze toothpaste out of the tube, it's hard to put it back in the tube. Good words of advice concerning journalism as well as our own human frailty of jumping to conclusions. Thanks, Jennifer. Take care.
It’s sad to see how many in the media are quick to throw truth and our democracy under the bus. Their only concern is their own short term profits. Good night and good luck to the rest of us.