It’s December 7th, 1941.
At about 2 pm Eastern Time, a newsflash comes across your Philco radio:
“We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air, President Roosevelt has just announced. The motive for the well-orchestrated, full-scale attack is not yet clear.”
Then, after several minutes, a panel of commentators begins to publicly discuss the news of the attack, with one of them casually suggesting that perhaps the Japanese weren’t instigating America to declare war upon the Axis powers, but were merely kamikazing into U.S. warships in a celebratory manner.
That’s what it may have sounded like if MSNBC were broadcasting in the early 1940s.
The motives of the Japanese were as clear then as the motives of Tyler Robinson and Joshua Jahn are today, even before we learned their identities.
Yet, mainstream media continues to play coy when the motive is so obvious.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was apparently clueless to the motive of Charlie Kirk’s assassination at the late date of September 16, six full days after the murder of the right-wing political activist.
“We don’t have a motive yet. We don’t know yet. We’re waiting,” said Collins to Senator Ted Cruz.
“Really? That’s CNN’s position,” Cruz shot back.
“I mean from law enforcement, Senator,” Collins said, doing her best to regain her footing in the interview.
This, of course, was disingenuous rhetoric from the oft-combative Collins. As a matter of fact, law enforcement had earlier that day released text messages between Kirk’s killer, Tyler Robinson, and his furry transgender boyfriend/girlfriend, Lance Twiggs.
“I had enough of his hatred. Some hatred can’t be negotiated out,” wrote Robinson.
“…the defendant is believed to have targeted Charlie Kirk based on Charlie Kirk’s political expression…” outlined Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray during the briefing.
Perhaps Ms. Collins missed that press conference by Utah officials, which had been broadcast on her own network.
That doesn’t negate the fact that Utah Governor Spencer Cox classified Kirk’s murder as a political assassination hours after Charlie was gunned down. Nor does it negate the fact that, within days of the murder, officials informed the public of the pro-Antifa and trans/furry messages that were etched onto the bullets.
But Kaitlan Collins and others were left scratching their heads and wondering what could have possibly motivated anyone to murder one of the most outspoken and powerful conservatives in modern American history.
We saw more examples of the obtuse media this week, when 29-year-old Joshua Jahn took potshots at ICE agents in Dallas.
“This is very early in the investigation” to establish a clear motive, said one commentator on MSNBC on Wednesday. This statement was made in the same breath after she detailed the “ANTI-ICE” etching in one of the bullets left behind by Jahn.
NBC’s Priscilla Thompson said “the motive remains unclear” on Thursday’s Today.
To be clear, waiting for official details to be released before speculating on a motive is a correct practice of journalistic integrity. However, when these networks are filling time between press conferences, they do nothing but speculate.
Following Kirk’s assassination, Matthew Dowd speculated that the shooter may have been firing his gun in celebration.
In the hours after the Dallas shooting, MSNBC suggested that the shooter may have been right-wing, citing “continued dehumanization of non-citizens” by the Department of Homeland Security.
These leftist networks will opine about anything and everything to distract from the absolute facts that lie before them. They will offer a thousand excuses and justifications to keep from admitting that the suspect in any of these recent acts of political violence is anyone other than someone who shares similar ideologies.
So, pardon me if I heartily scoff when the media dares to cite journalistic integrity instead of a clear motive.
I literally just watched you vomit out the most absurd reasonings for these murderous acts instead of speaking plainly and truthfully.
Applying journalistic integrity to some portions of your reporting and not others isn’t an option. To do anything else is simply dishonest.
No wonder Trump calls them the Fake News Media.