Appalled by headline on Kirk story
The Sept. 15 Gazette ran an AP wire service story about the murder of Charlie Kirk last week with the headline “Kirk shooting suspect ‘clearly a leftist.'” I am appalled that the Gazette ran the story with that headline. Those who read the article will realize that the quotation comes from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, not exactly a neutral observer. What we have learned about the shooter in the last five days is complex and contradictory. It emphatically does not support Cox’s claim that the shooter was “clearly” anything. As a long-time subscriber to the Gazette, I am deeply disappointed that you did not run the AP story under a more nuanced headline. As it is, someone who picked up the paper and skimmed through it (or scanned headlines on Gazettenet.com) might think that reliable sources had determined that Kirk’s assassin was on the left. That’s not correct, for two reasons: first, Spencer Cox is not a neutral source, and second, there are also some indications that Kirk’s murderer might have been a Groyper (Google it) who was upset that Kirk was not far right enough. Regardless of who the murderer actually was, and what he believed, the Gazette behaved irresponsibly when it published a headline that implied that the question was settled. I don’t expect better of online partisan websites, but I do expect better of my local newspaper. I would hate to cancel my Gazette subscription, because every cancellation is a dagger in the heart of local news. But if headlines continue to misstate the actual content of the article, I’m afraid I might need to take that step.
Brian Ogilvie
Hadley