The good, the bad and the ugly in the coverage of the Charlie Kirk shooting

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, there were no breaking news alerts on Americans’ smartphones.

But as the heartbreaking news about Charlie Kirk trickled in Wednesday, Kyle Smith, a film critic for The Wall Street Journal, imagined what the Kennedy coverage might have looked like today.

That was hyperbole, though not so far off from some of the comments on MSNBC that caused the left-leaning cable network to trend on X for a while — and later apologize.

Anchor Katy Tur and some of her guests seemed to struggle to refrain from the sort of rhetoric that is a hallmark of MSNBC, which is reliably antagonistic to Donald Trump and his supporters.

Sometimes, they didn’t succeed, as when Tur said, “You can imagine the (Trump) administration using this as a justification for something.”

It was a shocking thing to see a network anchor politicize the shooting of a 31-year-old father of two whose career had been built on debating people who disagree with him.

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It was even more shocking to hear an MSNBC guest, Matthew Dowd, accuse Kirk of hate speech, and say, “you can’t say these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place.”

MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler later apologized, saying in a statement, “During our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. We apologize for his statements, as has he. There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise.”

Dowd also said, even as the terrible video of Kirk being struck by the bullet was circulating online, that we shouldn’t rush to conclusions because “we don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration.”

The breaking news alerts that came across after Kirk was shot were telling, as well: which news outlet called him a “right-wing influencer” (The New York Times) and which called him a “conservative commentator” (Politico).

Most journalists and politicians, however, were able to put aside politics and see the afternoon for what it was: an unimaginable tragedy for Kirk’s family and friends, and a gut punch to the nation — to all of us.

“It’s a reminder that in a country like America, in a democracy, we only have a democracy if we settle our disagreements with words, not with violence,” Brian Stelter said on CNN.

“For the liberals, for the anti-Trump voices, for the anti-Kirk voices out there who feel despair about the direction of the country’s politics, the only way to address that is through words, not through violence. So whenever we see one of these appalling crimes, it is disturbing because it cuts to the core of how the American democracy functions.”

Stelter’s colleague, Jake Tapper, later spoke with emotion as a photo of Kirk and his family aired on the screen. “Everybody demonizes everybody else. ... These are human beings ... Charlie had a wife. Charlie had two little kids. You could disagree with every word Charlie said and still think these kids deserve to have a dad.”

An uncharacteristically somber Scott Jennings talked about Kirk’s appeal to young Americans: “Thousands of people were showing up. Not for a rock concert, not for a sporting event, but for American politics. He inspired all these kids to be involved in their country. It’s unequivocally a good legacy.”

On NewsNation, Geraldo Rivera was blunt: “I feel like throwing up. It’s such a painful thing you hope doesn’t happen, and then when they tell you, your worst fears are realized. It’s horrifying. It’s horrifying. You know, I think it is appropriate for the president to be the voice that carries this awful news to the nation, and I want the nation to stand as one now, to recognize the contribution this young man made, and to honor his family and to think about his family at this moment. It is beyond, really, beyond commentary.”

In a perfect world, there would be no one talking dismissively about America’s “gun culture” on the air as a young father lay dying, or musing that “maybe everybody’s arming up,” as one commentator did.

“Right now, this is who we are,” one commentator said and I wanted to throw a shoe at the TV screen.

Because it’s not who we are.

Most of us are not people on the brink of murdering people with whom we disagree. We are fathers and mothers and daughters and sons who are wrecked for days when something like this happens. Who understand that this is a dreadful aberration and not a rule of American life, although the frequency with which political violence is occurring is disturbing to all of us.

Listen to Laura Coates, speaking on CNN:

“This umbrella of violence that might have an ideological spin is why you hear so many conversations about domestic terrorism — an act intended to try to influence a political action in some way. ... It’s the most dangerous as well because it is so particularly generalized in its application against people.

“It’s very terrorizing, to use the term precisely, because it is not indicating one particular victim, but also trying to influence a thought process. Here, if this is in fact tied to (Kirk’s) ideology, given the fact that he is quite the lightning rod in many communities, and has been accessible and yet controversial, you’ve got a very terrifying prospect for so many people who share his similar qualities, in the sense of a public figure who is unabashed about their views but alienates others that could specifically be a target for someone. It is horrific to think about this being a young father, a human being generally being targeted in this way.”

The news coverage today, including that of Deseret reporters who were on the scene, has, for the most part, reflected the mood of the nation today: disbelief, horror and grief. There are no liberals declaring “We are all MAGA today,” but the New York Yankees holding a moment of silence for Kirk before their game came close.

In Connecticut, a group of young Democrats and a group of young Republicans issued a joint statement condemning political violence and offering prayers for all impacted. On Fox, Dana Perino called this a “watershed moment,” and on X, Meghan McCain wrote, “This is a generational, paradigm shifting moment in American history.”

It’s not the Turning Point that Kirk founded, but today feels like a turning point of a different kind.