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What’s wrong with this Daily Caller Headline?
My guess or hope is that the Daily Caller will revise the headline soon after getting blowback from its readers. There was nothing “alleged” about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. It was an attempt to assassinate him; an attempt to kill him – full stop. It wasn’t an ear piercing gone wrong or even an alleged attempted ear piercing gone wrong.
There were a lot of weak initial responses to the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump, but the moment that Mr. Trump was shot one could safely assume that the shooter wasn’t on the roof of the AGR building to shoot clay pigeons or the occasional stray crow flying hither and thither; that his grip on his rifle may have slipped or he was somehow unaware that the former president was inconveniently in the way of his recreational activity.
There have been a lot of baseless statements and speculations after the attempted assassination. After several days had passed and even after the often evasive and smarmy Director of the FBI testified before Congress, he later gave fuel to the notion that there was a possibility that Mr. Trump may have been hit with shrapnel rather than directly from a bullet (because somehow that would make a difference about the attempted assassination), a statement which the Assistant Director of the FBI had to walk back.
I realize that with most crimes that have not been adjudicated in a court of law, the standard journalistic practice is to use the word “alleged” before the words “murderer” or “thief” or “rapist.” But in this case, there should be no doubt that Mr. Crooks was attempting to assassinate the former President of the United States. So, hopefully, this is a simple oversight from a Daily Caller editor who should know better.
Published in General
More from alleged journalists allegedly reporting news on alleged news outlets…
At least they mention it. For the rest of the media, the event has already disappeared into the memory hole.
That SkyNews account I hadn’t seen before. Someone needs to make sure @yarob sees that.
Tell you what. If it wasn’t an assassination attempt, there’s a Secret Service sniper whose going to have to explain why he gunned down an innocent, I don’t know, birdwatcher or something.
It is probably a CoC violation to call out specific people for anything other than extreme flattery.
I saw some reports that it wasn’t the Secret Service counter-sniper who took out the killer.
Serous question: With the perpretator dead, what exactly are you expecting or desiring? Because here’s your “memory hole”:
Today (Aug 27): Task Force investigating attempted assassination of Donald Trump visits the site of shooting
Aug. 23: At least 5 Secret Service agents have been placed on modified duty after Trump assassination attempt
Aug. 21: Trump gives national security speech in first outdoor rally since assassination attempt
Aug. 13: Trump and Musk talk about assassination attempt and deportations during glitchy chat on X
Aug 9: Body camera footage shows law enforcement response during Trump assassination attempt (video)
Aug. 9: Body camera footage shows local police anger at Secret Service after Trump assassination attempt (story)
July 31: Trump returns to Pennsylvania for the first time since assassination attempt
July 29: Trump agrees to be interviewed as part of an investigation into his assassination attempt, FBI says
July 26: The attempted assassination of Donald Trump: A 3D reconstruction
July 23: Secret Service director steps down after assassination attempt against ex-President Trump at rally
July 22: Secret Service director on Capitol Hill to answer questions about attempted assassination of Trump
July 19: Trump describes assassination attempt with personal details
July 19: Trump accepts Republican presidential nomination days after assassination attempt
July 16: Pennsylvania town grapples with Trump assassination attempt
July 15: Lawmakers are moving quickly to launch investigations into the Trump assassination attempt
July 15: FBI still trying to determine motive behind Trump attempted assassination, AP Explains
July 14: Secret Service Agent who survived Reagan assassination attempt evaluates Trump rally shooting
That’s 15 stories from just the AP in the last 45 days, or one every three days. That doesn’t include 2 other stories on the town of Butler, or the 10 stories on Corey Comperatore. If that’s a “memory hole,” it’s a shallow one.
And had LEOs taken Crooks alive and he was awaiting trial, you’d probably be hearing less.
I’ll concede your point. And you’re right about the potential trial, too.
I’m not pointing a finger at you, but this is the new reality of news. People don’t trust the media so they don’t watch or read it. Trump friendly bloggers and Twitter accounts begin the narrative that the media is so corrupt they are “memory holing” and “burying” any mention of the assassination attempt. And those that don’t watch or read the MSM buy it and perpetuate it.
So let me ask the question again, because I am truly curious. Exactly what are the expectations?
Maybe that’s why he was cremated so quickly?
I think a lot of us would like to know what decisions were made, and who made them, and why, that allowed such an obvious security lapse to go unchecked.
We’d also like to know how it is that multiple witnesses saw the gunman, and yet word never reached the appropriate security people.
That would be a good start.
Beyond that, it would be nice to know the basis for refusing additional security, if in fact additional security was requested. Who made those decisions, and what was their correspondence surrounding those decisions.
And if the correspondence has been deleted, denied, or refused to be disclosed, they should go to prison for THAT.
There’s a video embedded in comment #1 that I would say prompts questions regarding how “news media” reports “news”. Maybe you could comment on that to help us understand.
I don’t think anyone here is seriously questioning the reality of a pro-Democrat media bias. I’m reading EJ’s comment as a response specifically to the claim that the assassination attempt on Trump has been suppressed by the press.
It would be interesting to analyze press coverage of the assassination attempt and compare it to some other example of coverage of an event comparable in drama and significance to the shooting, with attendant fatalities, of a presidential candidate on national television.
I’m not sure what such an event might be, of course….
Hmm… Were there more media reports denying Clinton’s sexual misconduct, than reporting on the attempted assassination of Trump?
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were.
All counter productive. In any investigation, conflicting accounts and resolving those conflicts lead to the truth. Issuing statements to the media is counterproductive to those ends.
We’re lucky. Political violence is rare in America. It’s been so long since we’ve dealt with something like this many have unreasonable expectations.
So here’s the thing, EJ.
I’d like a full investigation to be made and the results to be made known. A lot of us are skeptical that this administration will cooperate in such an effort, and also skeptical that the press will report anything unfavorable to the current administration.
There’s is sufficient reason to question the devotion to duty of those charged with protecting Trump, just as there’s reason to question the integrity of those we depend on to report on any investigation. This isn’t a trivial thing: In a democracy and in a critical election year, this is actually a pretty huge thing.
Skepticism of the press, of the DoJ, of the Secret Service, and of the alphabet agencies in general is justified. The investigation warrants more-than-normal coverage, and competent coverage.
I clicked on the link to see if it had been changed. Currently, no. Oddly, that’s the only time it appears in the article. All other sentences just say the “assassination attempt”. No equivocating there. I understand that writers rarely write the title, so blame this one on the editor?
See the last sentence of my post.
I’ve seen that video and many like it, including the tweet from Drew Holden in this post. The people responsible for those headlines and those early reports were hundreds, if not a thousand or more miles away and had no real knowledge of what was going on in Butler, PA.
They tried to learn the lessons of March 30, 1981 when the airwaves were full of misinformation about the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.
Frank Reynolds pronounced his friend James Brady dead on ABC. (He was not.)
Bernard Shaw on CNN said, “We cannot say it too many times, the President of the United States is okay.” (He was not.) “And now I’m told the President sustained a bump while he was being pushed into the car.” (A bump?)
Sen. Howard Baker (R – TN) interrupted a Senate hearing, “May I take this opportunity to advise the Senate that I have been advised that the President of the United States was the target of a shot fired at him a few moments ago. He was not hit.” (He was.)
But they didn’t really learn those lessons well because in 2011 NPR reported Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot dead. (Shot, yes, dead, no.) Two years later they were botching the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing – and all because they tried to be first instead of being right.
But there is no human grace left in this world. We expect the people we’ve declared our political enemies need to be perfect and we take great glee in pronouncing them failures when they’re not.
Having done it for 40 years, I think I can say with confidence that very few of the critics here and elsewhere would last very long doing live television and making the dozens and dozens of rapid fire decisions that need to be made. Consuming media is easy, executing it well and accurately is a different animal altogether.
My apologies. I missed that.
Well, Trump must have cut his ear when he fell, as most people do when they fall.
Check your notes. What did you know, when did you know it, and how did you learn about it?
Well, unlike the Reagan assassination attempt and the shooting of Giffords, I happened to be watching the rally live on television, as were millions of other Americans, including members of the news media. When I saw Trump reach up to his ear and heard the successive pops, I immediately knew that someone was shooting a firearm at the former president while he was on the stage. This was confirmed when Trump stood up and it was clearly evident that blood was streaked across his face. I would say that this was also confirmed immediately when Secret Service agents surrounded Trump, drew their weapons. Given that this was evident and happened in a matter of minutes, I would say that the media reporting this on websites could have gotten the story right. I can understand other media on television making mistakes or minimizing what happened in the first few seconds or minutes but after only about 7 or 8 minutes after Trump was wounded, it was pretty damn evident about what had happened.
Let me know if that helps you.
So, he reached for his ear first and then you heard the pops?
I’m not making fun of you, but it’s been 45 days and you got the timeline wrong. Now imagine doing that in real time. Pretty damn evident, you say? Maybe not.
Congratulations on watching it live. I’m pretty sure no one at the networks were. I watched Challenger blowup live on NASA’s backhaul feed. I knew something happened but I didn’t know what. And it would have been wrong to speculate.
It would be quite telling that no one at the networks were watching the event live.
There were additional shots fired after Trump was hit and when he went down. You may want to look at the video.
When you watched the Challenger blow up…you had a pretty good idea that it had blown up, yes?
Quite telling. Namely that all the conspiracy theorists who insist it was a deep state plot and that the news media was in on it is complete bovine fertilizer.
You wrote up your description and you got it wrong. And I point it out to make a point. Despite the insistence of all the armchair quarterbacks on this site, good accurate journalism takes more than a Twitter account and an internet connection.
You have no trouble taking your digs at the Daily Caller for using the word “alleged” some six weeks out, so why should we all accept anything less in the accuracy department from you?
That is was the shuttle and not just the booster? No.
The use of “Alleged” used in the Daily Caller headline is usually reserved for a living subject arrested for committing a crime. The wanna be assassin is dead so there will be no lawsuit against the Daily Caller after a trial. All the injuries and one death came from rounds fired into the podium area by the assassin.
Unlike the wanna be sniper be a real sniper only needed one round to administer a lead overdose that ended the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
Please try to comment like a reasonable human being.
If you want to smear me as conspiracy theorist then have the guts to say so specifically and directly; not through innuendo.
I shouldn’t even respond to this because it says so much more about you than about me.
Someone from each major network should have been at least monitoring the rally because it’s a newsworthy event despite the attempted assassination.
My description isn’t wrong. Shots were fired while Trump was on stage as I said.
Now, I must attend to something vastly more important than further responding to you.
Re-read that sentence. At no time did I accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist.
Again, re-read the sentence and tell me what it says about me.
Stump speeches are not newsworthy. And if a candidate is going to make news they let the media know.
But it was. You said he grabbed his ear and then the shots rang out.