In its live-update blog [Thursday], the Journal wrote, “Ammunition engraved with transgender and antifascist ideology was found inside the rifle authorities believe was used in [Charlie] Kirk’s shooting, according to an internal law enforcement bulletin and a source familiar with the investigation.” That language was echoed in social media posts.The Journal reported this, with no skepticism, shortly after right-wing commentator Steven Crowder announced on X that he'd received "an e-mail from officer at ATF" that "included a screen shot from what appears to be an internal [law enforcement] message" with this information.
We know now that the Journal royally fucked this up — the bullets did have messages, but nothing about transgender people was on them.
But the claim wasn't true. We now know that the messages were in-jokes known to gamers who play Helldivers 2 and Far Cry 6. The messages might also indicate that Tyler Robinson, the suspect, was a groyper who opposed Kirk from the right.
The Journal, the most editorially upright news outlet in the Murdoch family's American empire, isn't in the habit of publishing unverified reports from unnamed law enforcement sources that conveniently reinforce (or create) right-wing narratives in the wake of high-profile killings. But it's happened quite a few times at other Murdoch outlets.
In 2017, a local Fox News affiliate, and later Fox News itself, reported that Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer who'd been murdered on a street in Washington, D.C., the previous year, "had leaked thousands of internal emails to WikiLeaks," citing "law enforcement sources." Fox later claimed that the story "was corroborated by a federal investigator." Fox retracted the story a week later, and Rich's parents later sued Fox and settled the case for a reported seven-figure sum.
In 2013, after the Boston Marathon bombing, the New York Post published inaccurate suspect identifications twice. First, the Post published a story with the headline "FBI Grills Saudi Man in Boston Bombings: 'Smells of Gunpowder.'" "Authorities" were the source for this story, according to the Post.
Breaking: Authorities ID a Saudi national as a suspect in Boston Marathon bombings http://t.co/4hfqLc3n0A
— New York Post (@nypost) April 15, 2013
Subsequently, the Post published this front page:
The two people in the photo, like the Saudi national, were of Middle Eastern descent.
The FBI quickly announced that the two weren't suspects. The two -- 16-year-old Salaheddin Barhoum of Revere, Massachusetts, and 24-year-old Yassine Zaimi, of Malden, Massachusetts -- sued the Post and won a settlement.
After the 2024 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, that killed one man and left Donald Trump with a bloodied ear, the New York Post initially told readers that the shooter had been "identified as a Chinese man ... sources said" -- this at a time when Trump was frequently attacking China on the campaign trail, and many of his voters (and others) were accusing China of leaking the COVID virus. The Post story was later updated to say that the shooter had been "identified only as a white male," again according to "sources." The shooter was, in fact, white. The Post later apologized.
And in 2017, under pressure from the Canadian government, Fox News apologized for a tweet claiming that the suspect in the bombing of a Quebec mosque was a Moroccan man. The bomber was, in fact, Alexandre George-Henri Bissonnette, a far-right Quebec native. Fox said that "Quebec officials" had initially identified the Moroccan as a suspect (although, in this case, other news outlets had made the same error).
So this happens quite often in Murdoch Land, and I'm sure it will happen again soon.
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