Liveblogging Through It

In the hours after Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist and media star, was fatally shot on Thursday, news outlets raced to satisfy a sudden, staggering demand for information. Little was known about his killer. So it was notable when, around ten the following morning, the Wall Street Journal updated its liveblog to report that “an early bulletin circulated widely among law enforcement officials” found the ammunition had been engraved “with expressions of ‘transgender and anti-fascist ideology.’” The Journal’s post provided some detail about the substance of the bulletin (“an older-model .30 caliber hunting rifle was discovered in the woods near the scene”) but did not describe the inscriptions or provide political context about the “ideology” phrase. The story quickly spread on social media and got picked up by The Guardian, The Telegraph, and the Daily Beast, among others. Soon, the Trans Journalists Association weighed in, urging caution and noting that “‘transgender ideology’ is a term coined for and used in anti-trans political messaging to falsely equate identity with politics, which is a way to frame transgender identity as a political choice rather than an innate identity.”

This was one of a number of shaky reports that emerged in the aftermath of Kirk’s death. Major broadcasters filled airtime by sharing reporting alongside speculation. On MSNBC, Matthew Dowd, a pundit, suggested that the assailant might have been a “supporter shooting their gun off in celebration.” (Dowd was later fired for his comments on television that day, including a remark that Kirk’s “hateful” speech may have precipitated the shooting.) On CNN, John Miller, a chief law enforcement analyst, argued that the shooter was likely someone with a degree of expertise. (“This wasn’t an amateur,” he said.) On Fox, a retired FBI agent told Jesse Watters that the attack had the signs of a “professional hit.” The notion that the shooter must have been a trained marksman reached its apotheosis late on the night of the killing, when John Solomon, the pot-stirring off-again on-again Fox contributor, told Sean Hannity that he was hearing of some nebulous connection to “foreign intelligence.” The next night, Hannity mentioned that he too had “a source in the intel community” who suggested “there might be a foreign component to it.”