Media unequipped to decipher Charlie Kirk suspect’s politics

The killing of the right-wing influencer has seen once-trusted news outlets abandon factchecking in the rush for online clicks

Charlie Kirk murder suspect Tyler Robinson: Why project non-existent political views onto the assailant? Why rush out stories about 'trans ideology' and run with questionable sources?

On Wednesday, September 10, at about 12:23pm, the far-right influencer and podcaster Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck and killed at a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University. That part, we know to be true. 

Within hours of his murder, media speculation ran rife. The Wall Street Journal, one of the United States’ newspapers of record, published an article on September 11 that claimed the ammunition recovered from the site of the shooting was engraved with “transgender and anti-fascist ideology”.