The Abject Failure of Corporate Media in the Wake of Charlie Kirk

I've been steeped in the news media for nearly 8 years and I've never seen more retractions than I have this week.

With its reckless need to be first, the corporate media ate shit this week in its utterly incompetent attempts to assign blame to the left for the school shooting at Utah Valley University. The oligarchs that control the news narrative in America know where their bread is buttered - and right-wing rage is their cash cow.

Seemingly blind to the destruction they’ll create by promoting incongruent and fear-based first impressions, they steamed ahead with thinly-sourced rumors and innuendo that will certainly foment more violence. Or perhaps that’s more intentional than we’d care to admit.

Two things have been happening in parallel that resulted in this perfect storm. First, the takeover and consolidation of massive news and social media conglomerates. And second, the dismantling and corruption of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Since Trump took office, the FBI has been systematically purged of career professionals, starting with the appointments of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. These anti-qualified ratbags have completely gutted the FBI through a series of idiotic and often illegal maneuvers designed to protect the powerful at the expense of the rest of us.

In March, the FBI gutted the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, decimating the Bureau’s ability to monitor threats posed by white supremacists and militia groups and potentially hamper law enforcement’s ability to disrupt plots. Their focus was shifted to protecting Tesla dealerships. Kash Patel also ended the practice of tagging incidents with connections to domestic terrorism, and reassigned the Joint Terrorism Task Force to help ICE with mass deportation efforts.

According to Reuters: The moves, sources said, are an indication that domestic terrorism investigations, which in recent years have largely involved violence fueled by right-wing ideologies, may be less of a priority under FBI Director Kash Patel, a prominent critic of the effort.

Since then, multiple career professionals in leadership have been purged from the agency, including the head of the Salt Lake City FBI Field Office Mehtab Syed. Patel threatened to move her to the Huntsville, Alabama complex, forcing her resignation. He did the same with Spencer Evans - taking him out of the Las Vegas field office and moving him to Huntsville. Spencer Evans, along with Brian Driscoll and Steven Jensen.

The lawsuit alleges that Patel fired them unlawfully in an ongoing effort to prioritize politicizing the FBI over the safety of the American people. All of this centers around the purging of agents who worked on Trump cases including the investigation of the January 6th insurrection.

The CATO institute reports that after the purge of probationary agents, losses due to voluntary resignations, and removal of agents that worked on Trump cases - one in five of the remaining personnel were re-assigned to DHS. And the agents left after that were ordered to spend a third of their time assisting ICE with mass deportation efforts. Reuters reported in May that in a series of meetings, FBI agents were told by their field offices they would need to start devoting about one third of their time to helping the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration.

It’s no wonder the plot to murder Charlie Kirk was missed, and the subsequent manhunt came up empty.

Meanwhile, corporate news media has been consolidating and capitulating to the Trump regime, and social media (not all) is being run by Trump allies. Namely Elon Musk at Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Insta, and Trump donors at TikTok. ABC settled its lawsuit, 60 Minutes’ producer was pushed out, Paramount ousted Colbert so their Skydance merger would be approved, CBS agreed not to edit disinformation from right wingers who appear on Face the Nation, The Washington Post died in darkness, and now Paramount is seeking to buy Warner/CNN.

Put these two things together: the politicization of the FBI and the takeover of corporate media, and it’s no wonder we’ve seen a record number of bullshit errors and retractions in the wake of the UVU shooting.

Let’s start with Trump himself releasing a video the night of the shooting to set the agenda for how the week would unfold. Before the shooter was in custody, and even before he had been identified, the president signaled to his minions in the media and in law enforcement that Kirk’s death was the result of “radical left political violence.” And the media heard the call loud and clear.

First, the Wall Street Journal declared that the bullets were engraved with “transgender and antifascist ideology.” Their source? A single “law enforcement official” and an “internal ATF law enforcement bulletin.” The Journal didn’t name their single source, nor did they show the alleged bulletin. Was the source someone from the gutted and politicized FBI? We had no idea. Within a couple of hours, the ATF put out a statement saying that the Wall Street Journal was wrong, the memo referenced didn’t match their information, and that the paper’s characterization of the facts amounted to misinformation.

When we learned what was actually etched on the bullets, it became clear that the phrases were from a video game called Helldivers2 and did not denote transgender ideology (whatever that is) or antifascist views.

But then the media ran with a specific phrase engraved on one of the bullets: “Hey, Fascist! Catch!” followed by a series of arrows. They fully believed with their whole hearts that this meant the shooter was “antifa” - which is also not a real thing. But they were wrong. The Helldivers2 video game is about a fascist regime, and the arrows are a controller sequence used to drop a bomb in the game.

But that didn’t stop the BBC from reporting the antifa angle. Mike Wendling reported The bullets described by authorities indicate the suspect was steeped in online culture and included references to Antifa, the anti-fascist movement.

A quick internet search would have proven that false, and I know because I did a quick internet search and got the answer. But the media had their marching orders.

Next, the Washington Post proudly misquoted Governor Cox of Utah, saying that the shooter didn’t like Charlie Kirk because Charlie Kirk “was full of hate.” They had to correct their bullshit story because while it was true that the Governor said the shooter didn’t like Charlie Kirk, he did NOT say it was because Charlie was full of hate. That’s hugely important considering democrats aren’t the only people who don’t like Charlie Kirk’s views. There’s a whole faction of people to the right of Charlie Kirk that don’t like him because he’s not enough of a neonazi.

Then the Guardian had to retract its story that the shooter was “left on everything” and the only “leftist” in his family after their “source” fell apart.

As I have said from the jump, I have never seen more egregious and dangerous lies from corporate media since I’ve been in the business of countering them as an independent media outlet. These are more than just errors, and the media knows it. The first impression is what sticks, and buried retractions without apology get hardly any coverage by the time the initial bullshit has gone around the world and back.

That’s why it’s so important to be vigilant with corporate media stories. Look for the sourcing. Did it come from “an FBI official”, or a “memo” they aren’t showing you, or is it from an “administration official?” Are there multiple sources, or is it one guy who went to high school with the subject’s cousin? There are so many solid reporters out there in the media, but there’s also pressure from shareholders to turn a profit, and pressure from the regime. And the combination of a politicized FBI and subjugated media owners that we have to approach claims with scrutiny.

Like the new theory that the shooter had a roommate that was transitioning. Where is that coming from? One Fox News reporter made the claim after speaking to a source at Patel’s FBI; the same Fox News and FBI desperate to pin this all on someone from the “left” as instructed by Trump.

Finally, there’s the complete and total sanitization of Charlie Kirk by outlets who fail to speak frankly and honestly about his views. Charlie Kirk was proud of his views, so why not quote him on his beliefs? MSNBC went as far as to fire Matthew Dowd for saying - when ASKED about the political environment - that Kirk was divisive. I can’t believe we live in a time when you’re accused of befouling a person’s legacy by quoting them directly.

I’ll be talking about all this later today on my second episode of The Breakdown video podcast live on the Meidas Touch network. You can watch for free Sunday at 6:30 PM ET/3:30 PM PT using the link below. Independent media is crucial now more than ever, so thanks for supporting it.