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A version of this article first appeared in the newspaper “Trusted Source”. You can sign up right here for free.
Official statements are not adding up. Gaps and inconsistencies are sounding the alarm. Public representatives are unable to answer the questions of the people.
This is a moment when journalists are needed. And a moment when journalists have to fix it.
Unfortunately the topic is completely heartbreaking : 19 children and 2 adults killed in Rob Elementary, How was the gunman able to kill so many people? Why was he not stopped sooner? Who was responsible for the police response? Why were so many early accounts wrong according to the new statements? What should we believe?
had questions about police response front and center All day Thursday, due in large part to parents who spoke, backed by amateur video clips of Tuesday’s chaotic crime scene. Most of their questions have not been answered. Disappointment is over. “We’ve been given a lot of bad information,” CNN’s Simeon Prokupez said Told Thursday afternoon press conference. “These parents deserve to know what happened to their kids minute by minute,” Anderson Cooper Told To prokupase later in the day.
Of course, the questions have given rise to restlessness and defensiveness. When I turned on “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning, I heard Ainsley Earhart say, “It’s easier for the media in New York or California to judge what’s going on.” But his remarks didn’t matter – members of the media on the ground in Texas are pertinent questioners. I checked with Marc Duvoisin, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, the daily newspaper closest to Uvalde. He agreed with my impression that Thursday’s coverage was a turning point firing,
“Immediate questions about the police’s response to the genocide have not been answered with clarity or consistency, and residents’ frustration has begun to boil over on social media,” Duvoisin said in an email message Thursday night. “The information gap became a partisan thing, and elected officials began demanding answers and investigations.”
Let me quote Duvoisin in full:
“This afternoon’s briefing by a Texas Department of Public Safety official answered some questions about the police response, but left much confusion. Why was the school door open that morning? Unknown.”
“A day earlier, DPS officials had said that a school police officer confronted the gunman before entering the school. At today’s briefing, a DPS officer said the opposite: The gunman entered the school without encountering resistance. After several minutes police officers arrived there. Why it took an hour to force the SWAT team to assemble and go in: ‘That’s a tough question.'”
“The information regarding the incident has been strictly controlled from the very beginning. Throughout the day on Tuesday, the Uvalde police remained silent on the number of casualties. So were the local hospitals. The scope of the massacre was not made public until Tuesday afternoon – by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. In my experience, this is unusual. In the event of a mass casualty, I would see the head of the major responding agency briefing the media, often several times a day.”
Duvoisin helped direct coverage of the 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, and after that, journalists were briefed by the city’s police chief. “They didn’t have to wait on the governor of California to get the facts,” he said. “I think the lack of information has created frustration, and that frustration escalated on Wednesday when Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and others went to Uvalde to hold a news conference. Abbott praised the first responders, sympathized with the victims and spoke in general terms about the importance of mental health care. But they gave little information about what actually happened inside that school.”
On Wednesday, the governor of Texas took a tough stand when he confronted Beto O’Rourke. Abbott was nowhere to be seen on Thursday. Questions hanging in the 90 degree air of Uvalde. Every possible explanation made the pain worse. The words of CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyam stuck with me: She struck at the fact that Texas officials initially talked about how “worse” the attack could have been. “We are hearing that things could have been worse, which is always true,” wrote Kayyam. “The question is whether things could have been less bad. And I fear the answer may be yes.”
Journalists in and out of Uvalde are finding it hour by hour. i highly recommend it this thread by Stephen Gutowski, founder and editor of gun policy/politics site The Reload, who said, “The more we learn about how the police handled this shooting, the more outrageous it becomes. I’ve been active with several groups.” The shooters have done training. The first principle is always to act as fast as possible. How could they wait for so long?” When will the governor answer?
Maybe on Friday. Abbott – who was due to speak on Friday, the first day of the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association – is canceling his personal appearance to attend the Friday afternoon press conference in Uvalde. He would literally speak at the convention instead.
“Governor will address the NRA via pre-recorded video,” spokesman Mark Minor told the Dallas Morning News Thursday.
As Wapo Media Critic Eric Wemple tweeted“TV news anchors always caution that initial reports about mass shootings may be inaccurate, partly because of misinformation from authorities. But it is of another magnitude entirely.” Yes it is. Officials “The response to the genocide and law enforcement has offered various timing and explanations,” said Mark Berman of Wapo wrote, “They have also sometimes made inconsistent or contradictory announcements about important details, such as how the shooter entered the school or how long he was inside. They have also withdrawn some of the claims outright.”
I drew some criticism on Twitter, saying that extreme confusion about the timeline of the attack would make it even more difficult to find any common ground because some people would stick with the basic “facts”. Others will believe the new information; Others will tune it; And others won’t believe it at all.
I agree that common ground is unlikely but impossible. But how about a relatively shared understanding of the most basic of facts? This week’s confusion is creating a vacuum. Conspiracy theories about the attack are already spreading among those who believe the mass shootings are a gun-seizure conspiracy. Claims of massive coverup are already spreading among people who believe. Journalists will get to the bottom of it, but as long as all the facts are gathered together, disinformation may be a victory for the field…
– NBC’s Mike Hixenbaugh: “What was happening inside that classroom for an *hour*? It’s getting even more frightening…” (Twitter,
, “Police Lies” Right now is the primary reaction of progressives. “We all … are hoping that the police are telling us the truth, what a mistake it could be to think,” Dan Frumkin writes … (press watch,
– “These cops fail” is a response to some (but not all) conservatives. One of the Daily Caller’s main headlines is now “TX police lieutenant. Originally said police were too afraid to shoot stormtroopers in class…” (daily caller,
— One of Express-News’ top stories: “After the Uvalde massacre, Texas GOP leaders doubled down on the same reform they tried after Santa Fe…” (express-news,
my guest This Week’s “Trusted Sources” Podcast Sewell Chan is the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, one of the nation’s leading non-profit newsrooms. He described how his employees covering Tuesday’s primaries had created an uproar across the state when they had to prepare for the mass murder in Uvalde. He’s trying to make sure employees take mental health breaks between marathon reporting days. “All editors and news managers have to think about the well-being and safety of our employees,” he said. “Not only getting the story going but also making sure that … we’re able to talk about what we’re processing.”
Chan also discussed many other reasons Texas is in the news, from primary election results to abortion restrictions to heat waves. “Never lets this happen in Texas,” he said. Tune in via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, sewing machine, tune inOr your favorite app…
Charlotte Klein of VF Rewrote the conversation of the media world About whether the audience should see the horrifying reality that modern weapons destroy the body. “The kind of graphic imagery that some are advocating for is currently theoretical, as it is unclear what crime scene photos in Uvalde will be accessible to the media,” she notes. “And there are many reasons why such photos are not publicized, including protecting the family’s privacy and journalistic traditions.” Even then…