Terrorism’s Spin Doctors

Why do legacy media outlets consistently obfuscate terrorist attacks, like this week’s in New York City?

Two teenagers, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” threw homemade explosives at anti-Muslim protesters near the mayor of New York City’s residence. Thankfully, the bombs didn’t explode as intended, and the two were arrested and charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and providing material support to terrorists. Reporters and law enforcement quickly found that the two had very publicly supported ISIS and had carried out the act of terrorism in the Islamic terrorist group’s name.

That kind of tidy, to-the-point framing, apparently, was lost on the legacy media this week. Rather than report the obvious facts, outlets tied themselves in knots to muddy the waters about what had been thrown, and by whom. NBC News called the IEDs merely “suspicious devices” thrown “during [an] anti-Islam rally.” CBS reported that “suspicious devices ignited during protests near Manhattan’s Gracie Mansion.” The New York Times published an all-timer of a headline, “Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near Mayor’s House.”

The passive voice was heavily featured. Another New York Times story went “A Homemade Bomb at Gracie Mansion Unsettles New York: It was the first time in nine years that a makeshift device was deployed in the city.” At Politico, the story was that “A bomb thrown outside Gracie Mansion unearths grim reality for NYC mayor.”

One important fact reliably managed to trip up the press: the motivations of the terrorists. Numerous outlets seemed to imply that the bombs were thrown by the protestors upset about Muslim immigration to New York City, perhaps at the Muslim mayor — despite the quick arrests of the ISIS sympathizers. Axios went with “‘Explosive’ device thrown outside NYC Mayor Mamdani’s residence, NYPD.” CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere had to apologize and issue a correction after implying that Mamdani was the target.

On air at CNN, the error was much more explicit. Host Abby Phillip apologized for claiming that the ISIS-inspired bombers were in fact anti-Islamic radicals targeting New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

If that weren’t bad enough, legacy media outlets then shifted to a bizarre attempt to remove blame from the terrorists. CNN would soon outdo itself with a jaw dropping abuse of the English language in a since-updated story about the two arrested. A tweet about the story was lambasted on Twitter, but the first paragraph of the initial story was even worse (emphasis added):

Two Pennsylvania men on Saturday followed the route taken by thousands as they crossed the George Washington Bridge into New York City. But less than an hour later, their trajectory took a dark turn as they were arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.

Personally, I can’t stand when my trajectory takes a dark turn owing to my arrest for throwing homemade bombs – a thing about which I have no agency, of course.

But this is a longstanding legacy media practice: when events seem to scramble the preferred narrative, all accountability, all blame, all understanding of cause-and-effect go out the window. Things are done by disembodied forces, with everyone – including the bad actors – powerless to do anything to stop it, and with the obvious and incriminating details suspiciously absent from the “reporting” when bad things happen to people the media deems bad.

Remember the attempted assassination of President Trump in 2024? The initial reports were mind-bendingly nondescript even when what was happening was clear: USA Today reported that Trump was “removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startle former president, crowd.” NBC News went with “after popping noises heard at his Pennsylvania rally.” CNN was even more unhelpful, reporting “Trump injured in incident at rally.” There were more, all of which helped aid in the legacy media’s quick memory-holing of the shooting.

But of course, it isn’t that the press always plays down these kinds of rapidly evolving situations. When the details fit the narrative, legacy media outlets are often jumping over one another to rush out the story — even if those details aren’t actually supported by the facts. Who can forget the brouhaha around the supposed hate crime against Jussie Smollett, or the alleged “noose” in the garage of NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, or the tarring of the allegedly racist Covington Catholic students in DC?

In this case, the legacy media had a convenient-sounding story. The protestors were a small, rag-tag group of maybe two dozen led by internet provocateur Jake Lang, the type of nobody the press likes to associated with Trump and conservatives. When violence erupted, of course it had to be from him and his ilk. Of course the target was New York City’s first Muslim mayor. Of course, no matter how thin the cable of causality really was, this had to be Trump’s fault, somehow, someway. It just wasn’t so, and the press couldn’t get that logic out of their heads.

What it all reveals is that legacy media outlets’ starting point that Trump and those who support him are the ones who are bad and violent clouds their collective ability to report accurately when something bad and violent is perpetrated by anyone else. The press can’t seem to believe it, let alone know how to describe it — particularly when the violence is directed at Trump, or his supporters, or the various evil and bigoted groups whom the media describe as on the Right.

All this matters because this first rough draft of history that the media creates in their coverage has an enormous ability to shape public beliefs about events. The students at Covington Catholic had their lives destroyed. Millions still believe false evidence of other media conspiracies like Trump’s alleged “Russian Collusion.” It helps explain why trust in the media is at an all-time low.

Those numbers aren’t likely to rebound any time soon if the press can’t so much as attempt to rein in its biases.