How To Heal A Nation
A psychopath just tried to destroy democracy. But not in the way that some have been foretelling. America now has a choice: continue on the path of violence or reclaim humanity.
My kneejerk reaction on Saturday was to immediately get typing. In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t do that. Time to process information is important. Both when receiving that information as a viewer/reader and when reporting it as a journalist. Even still, it would have probably been better to acknowledge what was an obvious assassination attempt of a former US president in real time; judging purely by this low bar, most of the major news outlets failed quite spectacularly. We’ll surely get into the media angle of all this in a moment.
But first, as Americans, I think we need to be unified on something very important; there must be accountability for such an incomprehensible security failure. And I don’t mean the standard “oopsie, we messed up” that we generally get from the administrative state in the rare instances when we’re lucky enough to get an admission of fault. We need more than that. People need to be fired. Full stop. Nothing less is acceptable in a serious society that claims to have rULe oF LAw.
Who is to blame for this? The secret service? Local law enforcement? The administration? All the above? We need to know.
Whether one votes Democratic, Republican, or Independent, I don’t think there can be too much disagreement that at a political rally for a former U.S. President the security team should notice a man with a rifle on a roof before a dude at a cookout does. I think we could also probably agree that following the alert from the cookout guy, the existence of a gunman is a nugget that should probably make its way to the secret service sniper before said gunman gets 7 or 8 rounds out of the magazine.
But I’ll fully acknowledge that event security is not an area where I have any experience. Someone who does claim to have worked Presidential security in the past seems to put the blame primarily on the local law enforcement tasked with securing the location’s middle tier:
Secret Service advanced teams would have absolutely pre-scouted the location and identified the building the shooter used as a vulnerable spot in the defense. Which begs the question, how was this guy still able to climb on the roof and get off a shot? Based on limited details at this point, IMO, the security breakdown occurred in the middle tier, which would likely include law enforcement who were supposed to be assigned to the area near the outbuildings. - Tim McMillan via X
This whole thread is very interesting and worth the read. He addresses how the shooter evaded SS snipers and possible communication weaknesses between security tiers. Frankly, how the shooter was able to position and act is just one part of this. I can’t comprehend how the secret service took so long to get Trump off the stage. Baller-ass pic aside, I can’t wrap my mind around how they let him stick is head back up after shots were fired:
But that’s as far as my critique of security will advance on this day. There’s plenty of low hanging fruit, but I won’t go there. Rather, I’ll make this more about an angle of this ordeal that I do have some knowledge on.
The Media: Fundamentals, Bias, and Age of X
I spent more than a decade working in the local TV news business. Though I was never a reporter or “on air,” I’ve been involved in editorial meetings in three different newsrooms. The point is I’m very familiar with the newsgathering process and the rules that media outlets are supposed to play by. As one might expect, I have an opinion on how the assassination attempt Saturday was covered.
Let’s get the important part out of the way: nobody wants a repeat of the utterly disastrous Boston Marathon bombing coverage from the legacy news networks and papers back in 2013:
If you don’t remember how horrid that performance was, viewers and readers had everything from false reports of suspects, false reports of arrests, false reports of an additional bomb, and the infamous “Bag Men” paper from the NY Post which implied the guilt of two random, completely innocent guys. Getting beyond the atrocity of the bombing itself, the coverage of it should be studied in journalism school forever as an example of complete failure.
I invite you to watch that full video above because it’s incredible to me on a variety of levels. Not just for the examples of all of the factual screw ups, but for the roundtable discussion that follows. Here’s an interesting opinion about what drove the shitty hasty reporting:
It was a very big blunder, alright. But lets analyze why it happened. The reason why is there is so much competition out there right now. Not just other cable news networks, but Twitter. Twitter is that blitzing linebacker that’s rushing the quarterback who is throwing the ball before he wants to. - Joe Concha, Mediaite
Not a bad analogy, to be honest. But a copout nonetheless. For me, what’s really applicable today comes in an exchange shortly after that quote between Erik Wemple of the Washington Post and Lauren Ashburn of Daily-Download.com. They were discussing the feasibility of waiting for official statements and press conferences when disseminating points of fact in a developing story:
Lauren Ashburn: It’s really tough. Take for example when the bombing happened. 2:50 in the afternoon the very first tweet went up on to Twitter which said, “holy blank, explosion.” At 3:40, the Boston Police confirmed on Twitter that there was an explosion.
Erik Wemple: Obviously you don’t need confirmation that an explosion took place. I mean I think we can pretty well see that.
We Can Pretty Well See That
And this is why I have a huge problem with the way this shooting was covered Saturday evening:
I think we can pretty well see that there was a shooting at a Trump rally simply by watching this video. I mean, we hear the shots. We see Trump grab the side of his head before going down. We can audibly hear agents repeating “shooter’s down” before Trump comes back up bleeding. Seriously, what more do you need to call this a) a shooting and b) an assassination attempt of a political figure?
I mean Jiminy Christmas. What planet are we on?
Looks like an assassination attempt. Sounds like an assassination attempt. Even progressive AF political commentator Cenk Uygur was able to articulate that the President was shot shortly after it happened. And yet, this is how an entirely obvious assassination attempt was reported by legacy outlets long after it happened…
iNjUrED iN iNciDEnT
The word “shooting” wasn’t added to the URL headline until 4am Sunday according to screenshots from the Wayback Machine. By which point, the New York Post had already accurately reported the name of the shooter for over 4 hours…
To NBC’s credit, they updated their headline to include “shots fired” shortly after publishing. Then there was this creative masterpiece of spin…
“Loud noises startles former president.”
I’ll be generous: this one is just flat out shameful.
One cannot possibly suggest that it is inappropriate to use the word “shooting” without confirmation from authorities but then assume Trump’s state of mind in the moment and deduce that it was noise, rather than a bullet grazing his ear that caused the disruption of the event. This is brazen hackery. Subscription cancellation hackery at that.
Ready for a statement that shouldn’t even be slightly controversial? We don’t need USA Today. We don’t need CNN, NBC, FOX, the New York Times, or WaPo. Every major factual element that came out Saturday was on X first. X had the videos, the pictures, the major developments, and importantly, the tone well before legacy media outlets. If the Boston Marathon bombing marked the beginning of the downfall, the attempted assassination of Trump over the weekend laid it bare; many of these legacy media companies are dead already. X, and platforms like it, are the new media. To be sure, Substack has a role here as well.
Obviously, good curation is important. You’re not going to get a denial from me that there is a lot of garbage on X that must be dodged. This is where we need to be adults and be mindful of who we’re following and what we’re consuming.
Which now brings this to us…
Rhetoric & Unity
When, not if, Trump wins in November, the sun will come up the following day just as it did last time he won. Democracy in the United States will not be destroyed as a result of Donald Trump’s re-election to the office of President. He will not be any more of a tyrant than the current guy has been over these last 3.5 years.
In the ways that matter, the duopoly party will continue on the same destructive course that we have been on over (at least) the last twenty years regardless of who has overseen the grift. We will spend money we don’t have, debase the currency to oblivion, bailout corporate failures at the expense of taxpayers, and leave our children and grandchildren holding the bag.
This is why compassion for those who we might disagree with is so important. Given the course we’re on, we’re likely going to have to lean on each other down the line. Perhaps its time to stop arguing about words and differences, reacquaint with family and neighbors, and get over the small stuff.
If you’re mad about Trump using the word “bloodbath,” take a lap.
If you’re mad about Biden using the word “bullseye,” you take a lap too.
We need to be better than the Spider-Man meme…
It is now time that we all go touch grass.
Life is a precious thing. It’d be a shame to waste it dehumanizing each other. The thing is, nobody can do this for us. We all have to independently look inward with the faith that our neighbors, friends, and family will do the same. I’ve certainly been guilty of getting into the political mud in recent years. It’s easy when you don’t care for either major party, but I’m going to try to be better.
Today, I have a daughter. She’s beautiful, smart, hilarious, and innocent. She has no idea what happened on Saturday but she was intuitive enough that evening to see something was wrong with mom and dad. There will come a time when she’s old enough to understand all of this stuff. I want my future adult daughter to be proud of her parents, not disappointed with us. Beyond just how we raise her and what we do together; I want that pride to be rooted also in how we carry ourselves when the chips were down. How we act when there is darkness in the world. And the way we treat people who we don’t agree with.
Unity to me is about how we behave, not how we think. It’s perfectly okay for us to have different views. I’d actually argue it makes us sharper. Debate is good. We need it. It keeps us honest and makes us more intelligent. But debate requires civility. We’re now going to see what we’re made of as a nation.
And it starts at home.
RIP Corey.
That’s what we need now, balance. Thanks for your words!
Your last two paragraphs are thoughtful and inspiring. Thank you.