ABC News is facing criticism over vague reporting on the gunman who targeted Catholic school children during mass on Wednesday, particularly in reference to a message reading “Kill Donald Trump” on one of the gunman’s weapons. ABC refused to report on the exact message, instead leaving it up to interpretation that the killer was pro-Trump.
ABC News become the first public news broadcaster to report on a series of disturbing videos uploaded by Jordan Westman — the transgender-identifying gunman who killed two children and wounded several others — around 4:39 Eastern Time. Contents of the videos had already been widely reported by a number of online outlets by this time.
Messages scribbled on the killer’s weapons included “Where is your god,” “I’m the joker, why so queerious” and “Kill Donald Trump.” ABC News correspondent Aaron Katersky was incredibly vague when reporting on the messages, however.
“There are also photos of the weapons, and they include all sorts of writings, the names of past mass shooters, criticism of Israel, the name of President Trump, written on the guns,” Katersky reported, adding that Minneapolis Police have yet to establish a motive. The federal government has refuted this claim and is actively investigating the incident as an anti-Catholic hate crime.
“There are also racial slurs, nihilistic statements, all painting the picture of a disturbed individual who carried out this mass shooting on the first week of school at the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis,” ABC News added.
ABC News was far from the only outlet with questionable reporting on the shooting. Fox News host Trey Gowdy ignited a firestorm by falsely claiming mass shootings are “always, almost always” carried out by “young, white males.”
When reacting to the shooting during a panel discussion, Gowdy argued that increased gun control measures are needed to prevent mass shootings.
“Our system is reactive. Something bad happens, we react to it. And what people are crying for now is how can we prevent this? How can we stop it? And the only way to stop it is to identify the shooter ahead of time or keep the weapons out of their hands,” he said.
“And so we’re going to have to have a conversation of freedom versus protecting children. I mean, how many school shootings does it take before we’re going to have a conversation about keeping firearms out?”
Gowdy then repeated the verifiably false lie that mass shootings are “almost always” carried out by “young, white males.”
“I mean, did anyone this morning think, I wonder if that was a female? Did any of y ‘all think that? I mean, there’s been one school shooting involving a female. One at Tennessee. But other than that, it is usually young white males.”
CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez is taking heat for baffling statements he made about firearms in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.“These things can shoot dozens of bullets, you know, in just one trigger pull,” Perez said.
This statement left viewers puzzled, as semiautomatic weapons fire one round per trigger pull. “And so what happens in this case is sometimes they have enough time to reload. It’s one of the most horrific things for students to be sitting there. You saw this in Uvalde, you see this in Newtown repeatedly, where a shooter has enough time to reload,” he added.
